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Colleagues would like to communicate in a videoconference using Cisco Webex. This requires the Java plugin for Firefox/Iceweasel. Based on this blog, I installed the web browser plugin based on OpenJDK 7 and IcedTea:

apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin

I have access to the webex audio menu, but there is no sound. Webex uses a proprietary 32 bit sound application, according to this page concerning Fedora the only fix to the sound issue seems to install a 32 bit version of Firefox / Iceweasel and of the java plugin.

I enabled Multiarch as explained in this Debian HowTo:

dpkg --add-architecture i386

I removed the 64 bit version of the java plugin (to avoid the error trying to overwrite shared '/usr/bin/policyeditor', which is different from other instances of package icedtea-netx:i386)

apt-get remove icedtea-7-plugin

Then I installed 32 bit version of packages:

apt-get install iceweasel:i386

apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin:i386

apt-get install binutils:i386 # required for flashplugin

apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree:i386

apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound:i386

I tried installing a few other 32 bit packages without success.Fedora user negativo17 suggests installing Mesa’s libEG due to 2014 Mesa updates. I though It might help to install xserver-xorg-core for the 32 bit architecture. Somehow one of these steps broke the x-server:

apt-get install libegl1-mesa:i386 # suggested by Fedora user

apt-get install libepoxy0:i386 # for xorg

apt-get install xserver-xorg-core:i386 # because libegl1 reverse depends on it and I guessed the window system should also be in 32 bit for the above to work.

Now that iceweasel and the java plugin icedtea are installed in 32 bit. The Java webex interface starts but sound is still not working and I don't have access to the webex audio menu. Screen sharing is also not available.

Fedora user negativo17 suggests installing packages for the i386 architecture.
What architecture is recommended, should it be i386 or i686?

As the comments suggest, the usual way is to replace your iceweasel:amd64 package with the iceweasel:i386 package and let the dependencies work through. This is fine if all the dependent libraries are correctly multiarch compatible, but in cases where this doesn't work, a chroot install may be the best option.

To set up such a chroot the Debian way:

1. Ensure you are running a kernel that can execute IA32 ELF binaries.


2. Install schroot and cdebootstrap.


3. Create a directory of your choice (I'll use /usr/local/roots/i386) and run cdebootstrap -a i386 -f minimal --include "iceweasel" testing /usr/local/roots/i386 (replace testing with sid or jessie or your choice of Debian release; add any other options you need).


4. Configure schroot to use this directory as a chroot (in /etc/schroot/chroot.d/i386):
   [i386]
type=directory
directory=/usr/local/roots/i386
profile=default
   
   The default profile should already have bind mounts for /home etc - check in /etc/schroot/default/fstab to be sure.

Now you should be able to change into the schroot (schroot -c i386) and then start Iceweasel (or sudo aptitude install additional packages); you can start it in the chroot directory all in one command: schroot -c i386 iceweasel.

There's one caveat to all the above: iceweasel is actually a wrapper script, that looks for a running Iceweasel connected to $DISPLAY, and if so, uses its remote control protocol to open a new window. So if you're running the 64-bit Iceweasel, then that will be invoked even though you thought you were starting a new 32-bit instance. So you will need to close any native instances before starting the one in your chroot.