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Cross-Platform, Simple Voice Chat Software? 58

Posted by Cliff from the bridging-the-LD-gap dept.
nordicfrost asks: "My wonderful girlfriend and I have a dilemma. We want to talk to each other via the net to save money and still have a conversation. But she is a strictly Apple girl, and I'm a Debian man, who compromises with Windows at work. So, does anyone have the solution for an easy cross-platform voice chat application, preferrebly without having to altering my GF's firewall router via the phone?"
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Cross-Platform, Simple Voice Chat Software? More

Cross-Platform, Simple Voice Chat Software?

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  • Teamspeak? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by eggstasy ( 458692 )
    I dont know anything about firewalls but Teamspeak [teamspeak.org] has both a win32 and linux version, I've used it a lot, it has very low bandwidth comsumption and it's completely painless to set up.

    • Re:Teamspeak? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kelerain ( 577551 ) <.moc.liamtoh. .ta. .retsampam_cva.> on Saturday January 03, 2004 @05:24AM (#7866258)
      I use it as well. Teamspeak is very handy for chating and gaming, and I also find it easy to set up. For a firewall you need to open port 8767 UDP on the client end, and that shouldn't be too hard.

      On my linksys Wap11 go to the admin url http://192.168.1.1/ login with the passowrd (defaults to admin, or nothing I think..) then Advanced > forwarding > enter [name] Port (twice) check UDP, give the last octet of the IP address, then check enable. Confirm with "Apply" and its good to go.

      I have to guess most home 'firewalls' will be similar to this. On top of that they have a very easy to use and administrate linux server as well! Best of luck to you.

      - Kelerain

      • Re:Teamspeak? (Score:1, Redundant)

        by bitty ( 91794 )
        They want something that works on a Mac. Teamspeak isn't available on Mac yet, but they're working on it. They aren't promising any timeframe.

    • Re:Teamspeak? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Earlybird ( 56426 ) <slashdot&purefiction,net> on Saturday January 03, 2004 @06:01AM (#7866331) Homepage
      Please pay attention. The poster specifically listed MacOS support as a requirement. That rules out TeamSpeak, which only runs on Linux and Windows.

      • He could get GF an old PC. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @07:21AM (#7866438) Homepage

        Please DON'T pay attention. Many of us who read this don't have exactly the same problem. It's appropriate to talk about a wide range of solutions. Anyway, maybe he could get his GF or himself an old PC for $20 from the newspaper classified ads. Voice applications don't require much computing power. Skype, below, says 400 MHz is enough.

        I just want to connect with friends in France and Brazil. I don't need any standards like SIP. I would just like to use the sound card for sound. I want to avoid use of a server for making connections, because all the companies will soon begin charging for this unnecessary service.

        I've never used it, but for the MAC and PC there is the free version of the Xten [xten.com] software. Requires that you connect through someone's server. Free World Dialup was suggested to me.

        For the PC, Skype [skype.com] works perfectly. The sound quality is better than regular telephones. However, there are some problems: 1) Skype is made by the same people who made KaZaa. Possibly it has hidden functions like KaZaa does. I've already found that every time it is used it keeps installing itself so that it runs every time the computer is turned on. The download page says, "no spyware, no adware". 2) Skype requires an intermediate server. I would like to connect directly to my friend's IP address. 3) I haven't verified this, but Skype seems to use a hard-coded public key, so that, even though the voice is encrypted, it would be easy for anyone to decrypt.

        Skype can communicate through any firewall. If it doesn't find other ports open, it works on port 80. (For those who don't know, that's the HTTP browser port.) It would be great to find some open source software that could do that, because I don't like punching holes in firewalls. (However, if voice can go through port 80, so can absolutely anything else.)

        What other "Voice Chat" or "VOIP" software have you used, and what has been your experience?

        • Skype only needs a bootstrapper not a server.
          If that bootstrap server is unreachable it tries to bootstrap over ips of people it was once connected to. Every other aspect of the tool is entrily P2P based.
          If it can't establish a connection between you and your friend directly in both directions it will route the traffic over other people in the p2p network using encryption

          Its an incredibly smart system, credit where credit is due.
        • If he's gonna buy a comp, he should get a mac. You can install osx on some pretty old machines. iChat av has all you need for chat services.

  • OpenH323 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Curtman ( 556920 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @05:01AM (#7866200)
    Have you looked at OpenH323 [openh323.org]? There's a multitude of clients that it can communicate with. I've used it to communicate with family who use Windows, and friends who use Macs. As a bonus, video works great too.

    • Re:OpenH323 (Score:5, Informative)

      by transiit ( 33489 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @05:08AM (#7866223) Homepage Journal
      This is generally good advice: stick to the standard protocols.

      Note that VoIP (which is what's being asked about, even under the moniker "Voice Chat") does still have a multitude though: H.323/Q.931 is one (h.323 is mostly encoding, q.931 is mostly signalling. probably the most like the standard telco ss7 stack, but then it is an ITU standard), SIP (session initiation protocol) is another. MegaCo is another. There's more.

      SIP and H.323 seem to be the big ones right now, although there's no de facto standard going yet. YMMV.

      -transiit

    • Re:OpenH323 (Score:2, Informative)

      by demmegod ( 620100 )
      I've used Gnomemeeting with this. Works great with my webcam. I also bought a webcam for my g/f when she moved away some time ago... It was well worth it.
      • . I also bought a webcam for my g/f when she moved away some time ago... It was well worth it. ...It was well worth it. You sly dog. You're making the other slashdot geeks who pay monthly fees for that pretty jealous.

    • Re:OpenH323 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Earlybird ( 56426 ) <slashdot&purefiction,net> on Saturday January 03, 2004 @06:13AM (#7866346) Homepage
      I second the H.323 recommendation. On Windows you can use NetMeeting or OpenPhone [openh323.org]. On Mac OS X you can use ohphoneX [sourceforge.net].

      This being a standard protocol, these apps will communicate with each other. However, H.323 relies on UDP communication, which is always a problem with routers. Many routers (such as the 3Com OfficeConnect broadband router) come with built-in "NetMeeting support", ie. H.323 support.

      Other applications I know about, but haven't tried: iVisit [ivisit.com], Marratech [marratech.se], PictureTalk [pixion.com], vrvs [vrvs.org] (open source).

      • One you forgot that comes with most Linux distro's (and is definitely available for Debian) is GnomeMeeting. Probably the best known OSS H.323 client out there at the moment.

      • H.323 relies on UDP communication, which is always a problem with routers. Many routers (such as the 3Com OfficeConnect broadband router) come with built-in "NetMeeting support", ie. H.323 support.

        An approach for making sure the connections work is to make a VPN tunnel with, for example, OpenVPN [sf.net], which is cross-platform and not too painful to configure. I mention it because I feel like if I go with OpenVPN, I can be confident I will succeed, and not have to worry about things that are out of my control,

    • unfortunatly he'd have to fuck with his gf's firewall over the phone. Exactly what he did not want. He could go with SIP though and ingore the need to play with her firewall.
      • I wonder why he would do that anyway when OS X ships with an SSH server. Maybe she doesn't trust him with root? Maybe she's still on OS 9? I wonder why he didn't specify OS 9 or OS X, that is a huge factor.
    • There isn't an option on that site to download to a mac platform..

  • SquidCam (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Earlybird ( 56426 ) <slashdot&purefiction,net> on Saturday January 03, 2004 @06:19AM (#7866357) Homepage
    SquidCam [squidsoft.com] is a shareware audio/video conferencing app for Windows and Mac OS X. Costs $25. There is a trial download.

  • Try Yahoo... (Score:5, Informative)

    by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @06:21AM (#7866359)
    Yahoo is free, and runs on Mac, Window$ and Linux. You could create a private "user" room, when you are online, and only allow each other to join it. Once in the room, you can use voice to talk to each other. Sound quality is acceptable, even on a 56 Kbps modem.

    Using Yahoo also allows you to send "sweet" messages when she's not there - she will get them when she logs on next. Be really lovey-dovey and romantic - and she will be eager to avail her body to you on your next meeting.

    This method also works with multiple girl friends, but best results are only possible when only one girlfriend is online at any one time.

    Mike
    • Which bit of Yahoo do I have to visit to get this voice function?

      • Re:Try Yahoo... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Korgan ( 101803 )
        http://messenger.yahoo.com/

        The client for Linux is available in RPM and Debs. There is also a Solaris/SPARC version available, but thats outside the scope of this app.

        I have been using Yahoo a long time, I did not think the voice chat was available to the Linux version... My understanding was it was only available for the MacOSX and Windows versions (as is the webcam stuff).
    • Why was this listed as informative? Yahoo voice does NOT work on Mac or Linux so is just plain wrong. The voice chat uses some proprietary codec that is Windoze only. Was it modded up because of the cutsie comment about seducing your gf(s)?

  • I live overseas and have tried many of the cross platform clients (my wife's brother is only a Max OS guy). We never could get anything that really worked (I think we got yahoo working decently once for voice only).

    Eventually we discovered Packet8/a It's solved all our problems and we use it to call parents and great grandparents as well. I assume you both have broadband (since your GF has a router) and the costs is minimal ($20 month - unlimited minutes, free adapter). Lose you landline and pick this up i [packet8.net]

  • skip chat and go VoIP (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aolsheepdog ( 239764 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @10:05AM (#7866775) Homepage
    I live overseas and have tried many of the cross platform clients (my wife's brother is only a Max OS guy). We never could get anything that really worked (I think we got yahoo working decently once for voice only).

    Eventually we discovered Packet8 [packet8.net] It's solved all our problems and we use it to call parents and great grandparents as well. I assume you both have broadband (since your GF has a router) and the costs is minimal ($20 month - unlimited minutes, free adapter). Lose you landline and pick this up instead. One other trick would be to get telephone numbers in each others city. That way you can use your local POTS to call her from anywhere and it would be a "local" call.

    We love Voip. It allows us to receive calls via a US telephone number here as well. The whole thing works just like you'd expect and call quality is good.

  • Yet another OpenH323 Fan... (Score:4, Informative)

    by mercuryresearch ( 680293 ) * on Saturday January 03, 2004 @01:15PM (#7867529) Journal

    Like several of the others, I would recommend OpenH323 [openh323.org]. It's fairly easy to set up.

    You also have the option of setting up a gateway (hardware isn't cheap, however.) I've used the voicetronix [voicetronix.com] board. This would give the option of calling locally if your or she had other friends in the area.

    Also, I've found Voip far easier to use with real (or semi-real) phone hardware. Cisco has the ATA-186, though it operates best with proprietary codecs. I've ended up using a VoipVoice [voipvoice.com] handset -- it's USB and appears as a USB audio device under linux so it's pretty easy to configure, though it's a little weak on the volume. I got mine through IPblue [ipblue.com] though I am sure there are other sources/options for open-source IP phones.

    Creative labs used to sell the voipblaster, and this is still available from ebay, and that lets you use conventional phone hardware -- it's basically a USB-to-phone-jack converter with a hardware codec, and would likely be idea if you're working with anyone who is technology-challenged.

  • One place to check for Internet/Communication apps for the Macintosh is Mac Orchard [macorchard.com] It would be a good bet to start here, since it reads like the Mac platform is the lowest common denominator here.

  • iaxComm (Score:2, Informative)

    by m_vand ( 18198 )
    iaxComm is a crossplatform softphone that uses the IAX protocol. It works on Win32/Linux/OSX platforms. While I wrote it to connect to an asterisk PBX, you can use it peer-to-peer.

    IAX is firewall-friendly, just open port 5060 or 4569 for UDP traffic.

    Precompiled binaries, screenshots, etc, for Win32 and Linux and Mac OS X are here [sourceforge.net]

  • ... had differences of similar proportions. And you know how that relationship ended.

    I'd call the whole thing off if I were you. As a Debian man you should really not be dating down at that level. *runs for cover*
  • I'm in the same situation as you: my girlfriend lives in Toronto and I'm here in the UK studying for my degree. I just bought a cheap IP phone here, plugged it into my router and bought another from a Canadian supplier and had it sent to her, with instructions to do the same.

    Now we can call each other as often as we like, for as long as we like, for free. After a couple of weeks' usage, you'll have saved yourself the cost of the phones, in phone charges, many times over.
  • Get her Vonage service and a red Bat Phone. Tell her to call you on the Bat Phone.

    Much more fun than mucking around with software on the computers.
  • http://www.research.earthlink.net/confmgr/ Earthlink has that software, its still beta. But it does video/audio on PC/Mac/*Nix

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