This week I finally caved in and installed Skype on my laptop (at my wife’s request) and then installed Skype on my mother’s new desktop PC. We setup both audio and video and it works well. Setting up the mic (in Linux) was beyond my wife and mother’s capability to setup. The default did not ‘just work’ and per typical linux, there were a zillion selections to choose for the mic. OK, it was easy for me to immediately choose the correct mic setting, but not so easy for someone with less Linux audio experience.
I did find Skype easier to setup than the Linux aMSN (we are still trying to sort the firewall ports to open for audio (webcam works well)) and better than the Linux Kopete (which we also don’t have audio working properly yet).
I might be missing something in the is conversation…but I simply use google talk all day and with lots of people from all over the place. Chat or Video Chat no matter your set up…always on, ready to go. I keep gmail open on a firefox tab, so anyone can see I am available, and vice versa. Have you tried that? Anyone can get to gmail right?
That sounds interesting, so I tried to install google-talkplugin but could not find the following dependencies: libcrypto.so.10, libpulse.so.0, libssl.0
> That sounds interesting, so I tried to install google-talkplugin but
> could not find the following dependencies: libcrypto.so.10,
> libpulse.so.0, libssl.0
> I tried software.opensuse.org/searh and webpin but no luck (for
> 11.2-64bit)
On 2010-11-12 02:36, caprus wrote:
>
> That sounds interesting, so I tried to install google-talkplugin but
> could not find the following dependencies: libcrypto.so.10,
> libpulse.so.0, libssl.0
>
> I tried software.opensuse.org/searh and webpin but no luck (for
> 11.2-64bit)
Just search these forums because that has been explained many times how to
solve
Hint: it is just a symlink.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
I do not know if that might help but:
one alternative existed, video was working on XP and OpenSUSE although quality could have been better. The program was Wengo. The problem is that soon afterwards the French telecomprovider that stand behind as a sponsor (if I well recall cegetel) and that was catastrophic from their service point of view, stopped promoting it. It then went into a OSS project called “qutecom”. It seems since a long time that development is going on. But the version infos you get are totally confusing and the downloadable promoted version is still (since two years(!) RC2. There are a lot of builds, time ago a packager of Packman did care about producing packages (the last ones came out for 11.0) but then everything stopped (although apparently somebody uses it). I have to say that 3 years ago it was ready, more or less working well enough to promise to be a valuable OSS alternative to Skype. A few month ago I claimed in this forum that development has stopped to see somebody jump in to say: no it didn’t. Let say AFAIK there is no useful usable more recent version since RC2 and that was two years ago. Anybody of course is invited to proof me wrong.
The reason why I am writing about this is because to all extend (different to other VOIP applications) it exist for Win, Mac and Linux. So this could be something the original author did search for (yes I know this thread is far too old. But as the problem does not change…).
Good luck.
Ps. I was reading about KDE Telepathy still being developed (while “decibel” seems to be dead. See Widipedia:
Currently the Decibel project is unmaintained, but the integration of Telepathy into KDE is still very active
). The more you read about VOIP and OSS the more you get lost to be honest. If anybody has more recent and clear infos about the two programs and the protocol decibel then feel free to update me. I would be grateful to finally get some hold on some info at least, concerning VOIP and video.
Just search these forums because that has been explained many times how to solve
You’re right, it has been explained many times, but… I’d done a long and thorough search, and I’d found dozens of posts proposing solutions prior to posting my question here. Of the ones found, esp. those I found using Google were of no value, and most found, including some on this forum, were dated long prior to the release of the Linux version of google-talkplugin. I’d also found the post by malcolmlewis mentioned by phanisvara, however I noted that that post was dated Sept 1, while I believe the plugin was only released in August. Therefore I wondered if perhaps there had been progress since, and if the files in question were now available. That’s why I posted before proceeding.
I haven’t been able to open a chat window yet. When I try to do so, or to make a phone call I’m told to please download the voice plugin. That message is linked to a page with a “Try It Now” button that simply returns me to the gmail page I’d started from.
I’ve only been able to spend a couple of minutes on the problem so far since I loaded the plugin, so I may have missed something simple. I hope to have time to try again later this morning.
I’ve now installed on two PCs (and created the links), one w/ 11.2_64 & Chrome, other w/ 11.3_32 & Firefox. Same results: able to chat but when I click on the little camera icon that’s supposed to open a video chat window I get a link “Click here to add video chat” Clicking on it merely gets one back into the cycle of opportunities to install the plugin that I’d long since installed.
The video chat on the 11.3 one with Firefox appears to be working now, though it’s very hard to test with only 1 PC working.
The 11.2 is still SNAFU. I’ve tried it with both Chrome and Firefox. Firefox lists the plugins in Tools>Add-ons>Plugins, so it should work, but the behavior is still the same as above.
If anyone out there has an idea I’d love to hear it, because it’s the 11.2 PC that I most need to get working.
Yep, I finally conceded and installed Skype (following the instructions HERE) a couple of months ago and must say that it does work well and worked out of the box for me including the mic. It’s a shame that a open standard alternative can get off the ground and offer a competing service. I guess that even if one does start up, it’ll be pretty much impossible to make any impact on Skype’s share of the user base now.
I just finished testing Skype a few minutes ago with my 84-year old mother. She is in Canada, and I’m now back in Europe.
The test was not perfect, but it went reasonably well. I phoned my mother in Canada normally, and asked her to log on to Skype. Then I disconnected from the normal phone. Then with her logged on to Skype on her new HP P6510F 64-bit openSUSE-11.3 KDE-4.4.4 PC, from my from my 64-bit openSUSE-11.2 KDE-4.3.5 PC I initiated a Skype phone call. She answered, and we exchanged audio and video.
The audio quality was great.
Her PC in Canada has a very old Phillips Webcam (it used to be mine) that I gave her last week. My PC here in Europe has a new Logitech webcam. She could see my video well. To see her video on my PC (26" Samsung monitor) was very strange, as her video could not be seen at normal size, nor double size, but when I selected ‘full screen’ I obtained a great full screen video of her.
Her bandwidth is 6MB/second download. My bandwidth is 16MB/second download. She is planning to downgrade from 6MB/sec to 1.5MB/sec in a few months (to save in costs) and I hope I can still obtain such reasonable quality after her connection speed downgrade.
On 11/15/2010 01:06 PM, oldcpu wrote:
> Her bandwidth is 6MB/second download. My bandwidth is 16MB/second
> download. She is planning to downgrade from 6MB/sec to 1.5MB/sec in a
> few months (to save in costs) and I hope I can still obtain such
> reasonable quality after her connection speed downgrade.
It should be fine. My son is taking guitar lessons over skype with a
webcam and we have a 1 mb connection. It’s not ideal, but it’s far from
problematic…
–
Kevin Miller
Juneau, Alaska http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
In a recent poll, seven out of ten hard drives preferred Linux.
Here on this island we get ample opportunity (sic) to test the ramifications of various bandwidths from 90K to about 1.4M depending on… actually I’m not sure what it depends on, but that’s a whole other story. We’ve found that Skype works fine w/ a webcam at anything over 800K, under 500K it’s problematic and under about 140K it’s out of the question.
> Her bandwidth is 6MB/second download. My bandwidth is 16MB/second
> download. She is planning to downgrade from 6MB/sec to 1.5MB/sec in a
> few months (to save in costs) and I hope I can still obtain such
> reasonable quality after her connection speed downgrade.
your mom’s lower bandwidth shouldn’t be a problem. i’m only having 512Kb
(if i’m lucky) up/down here in india, and can see my mom’s video from
berlin nicely.
Re earlier reference to Skype’s proprietary voice protocol, I can’t be sure but am pretty certain it’s regarding the ability to tunnel the voice protocol (whatever it is) over http. With practically every other VoIP protocol, it’s a really big issue crossing NAT and firewalls, at least for SIP you have to deploy a SIP Proxy or deploy a SIP Server on the network edge… all things you’d never want to deal with your grandma in Timbuktu. So, “proprietary” isn’t really anything nefarious and in this case likely means “not interoperable” but who cares about that?
Bottom line probably is that SIP isn’t going to be an answer for consumers (only large businesses), other VoIP protocols have their own similar issues so today Skype is the only technology that’s universal and “just works” largely because of their proprietary protocol.
As for my personal experience, Skype works pretty well on all platforms. Googletalk is still a work in progress today, even after someone finally built an RPM in the Builder Service to get the darn Googletalk plugin installed. But, even with that installed, ALCS sound levels aren’t right.
Googletalk’s free phone call promo ends in a little over a month(as of today), I kind of doubt that it’s enough time to fix the Linux problems that still exist.
Well this is actually the problem. Skype does not respect any admin regulation and causes a great security risk to network environments. This is the reason for which skype is forbidden in most Universities, industries and research center. The preferred solution there is asterisk and SIP. Effectively the problem of for the development of OSS VOIP is the low initial volume of users and closed proprietary protocols. The presence of a monopolistic structure like Skype hampers competition and innovation. All proprietary solution are against progress and the free market (why should they compete at the margin?). And of course the problem of not knowing which kind of back-door may hold this closed source software that is able to communicate so well over whatsoever blocking device and does also file transfer by design.
Bottom line probably is that SIP isn’t going to be an answer for consumers (only large businesses), other VoIP protocols have their own similar issues so today Skype is the only technology that’s universal and “just works” largely because of their proprietary protocol.
Yes and no. The bottom line IMO is that free software project have budget problems and problems of human resources as soon as the professional capacity required is very specialistic and not usually represented in Universities. The fact that the video protocols available are all shipping with the sword of Damocles of hidden patents (like the case of ogg, and V8) makes the problem even trickier. An open video standard would be highly desirable.
AFAIK in software nobody can tell what is “in the oven”. Maybe, if V8 shows to be free of patent menaces then this initiative might brake the predominance of Skype and may even induce the opening of the core protocol of Skype (to maintain a big maket share. I do recall Skype being an enterprise eternally in deficit and that was several times menaced of being sold because business-wise not attractive.
Personally my choice is that on my productive machine I will not install Skype. For my taste too high a risk.
Most of what you say may be true, but the Market (User Acceptance) will only tolerate problems that can be overcome at reasonable cost, and SIP unfortunately for all its features (There’s a reason why it’s “the” standard today) is completely unusable by SOHO.
Whether Skype’s “proprietary technology” is that much of a risk is a matter of opinion. Those who were around when Skype first deployed its new protocol will remember within weeks a serious vulnerability was discovered and reported, and soon thereafter fixed. Just because something is Proprietary doesn’t mean that it can’t be inspected to the fullest depth, it does mean as you state that it restricts competition and can stifle innovation… But, Joe User doesn’t care about that as much as he just wants something that works… Which is something the SIP technology cannot deliver except with extreme modification.
The video protocols you list are actually not too much related to VoIP. The reason why SIP is preferred for VoIP is because of all the “extra” information it supports by default… location, presence, providing a basis for additional protocols to run over it that implement authentication and authroization. That’s how SIP phones can connect to a specified endpoint anywhere and the person you’re talking to on the other end isn’t an imposter… Those are all important telephone features you won’t get with regular video streaming protocols and why SIP is “the standard.”
As for Skype’s finances…
I remember it was funded and developed by the people who created the Kazaa P-P filesharing network and then bought by and currently owned by eBay (unless it’s been successfully split again). That’s not underfunded…
That the SIP protocol has to develop is true. That it would be “extreme modifications” I would have my doubt. My argument was not against proprietary protocol for unwanted back-doors. My argument was against proprietary software for “wanted and intentionally placed” back-doors (that of course cannot be abused because it would be illegal LOL). Purportedly there are countries that are favouring this “save solution” (although they have still some problems to document their claims of “necessity”). lol. BTW this request (if they get through with it), would mean the very end of the server structure and of the advantage of Skype. So I am curious to see what is going to happen.
The argument of open Market instead holds: all industries with abnormal growth have been able to get rid of the open market - nearly always with unfair business practices, through lobby in parliament to get laws “personalized” and through the use of “closed and incompatible proprietary protocols” protected by patents. So since a patent was originally designed to allow the exploitation in monopolistic regime to protect the inventor and allow him to pay back his investments (against the thought of creative destruction of a certain Mr Schumpeter) then you already see where the story goes: the absolute majority of the patents are shelf patents for legal cases and for hampering innovation of potential market entrants. What an aberration that has become show the number of either bought and never used shelf patents (IBM) or the number of frivolous litigations (I do not know why but the word “Oracle” comes to my mind…, or was it HTC, or was it MS or was it “Malus sieversii”? ).
The video protocols you list are actually not too much related to VoIP. The reason why SIP is preferred for VoIP is because of all the “extra” information it supports by default… location, presence, providing a basis for additional protocols to run over it that implement authentication and authroization. That’s how SIP phones can connect to a specified endpoint anywhere and the person you’re talking to on the other end isn’t an imposter… Those are all important telephone features you won’t get with regular video streaming protocols and why SIP is “the standard.”
Yes, it is a question of what “end user” want. They want easily to use protocols but they are also easily to be influenced (not to say manipulated). BTW I wonder if IPv6 brings advantages to the SIP protocols or disadvantages. In theory NAT will be much less frequent with IPv6 (since the very function of a NAT is the multiplication of IPv4 addresses). I would not be surprised by a “violent” renaissance of SIP protocol coming up with IPv6.
As for Skype’s finances…
I remember it was funded and developed by the people who created the Kazaa P-P filesharing network and then bought by and currently owned by eBay (unless it’s been successfully split again). That’s not underfunded…
Tony, there you got me wrong. I said the service is currently severely in deficit and was so in the past. That can be hold upright only through strong subventions and when you are well funded (what Skype, as you rightly stated, is). This is also why ebay already several times wanted to resell it…but does find nobody to pay what they hope. They will sell IMO once the losses will indicate a sales under price a suitable solution.
).