Mumble - Voip

[techrock]

Hey,

I'm not great on the technical side of things but I like to help out where I can. I've noticed people mentioning VOIP programs and when I get a Pandora, I would also like this too. I've found a voip program called Mumble which is apparently fairly good. It does have a source with it and I can see it has a .deb file which I'm pressuming is something to do with Debian. I haven't got a clue if it will be compatible with the ARM processor or the OS etc but mabye somebody could port it if they wanted. Just thought I'd throw this in incase anybody is interested.

http://mumble.sourceforge.net/

 

[Svartalf]

I'm not great on the technical side of things but I like to help out where I can. I've noticed people mentioning VOIP programs and when I get a Pandora, I would also like this too. I've found a voip program called Mumble which is apparently fairly good. It does have a source with it and I can see it has a .deb file which I'm pressuming is something to do with Debian. I haven't got a clue if it will be compatible with the ARM processor or the OS etc but mabye somebody could port it if they wanted. Just thought I'd throw this in incase anybody is interested.

It's a Roger Wilco replacement. Supposed to be pretty nice from what I understand; but it's more geared for in-game voice for team-play or for taunting people via voice in a deathmatch. It should be fairly easy to move over to Pandora, but we probably ought to see what the games do to the amount of free overhead first.

 

[atomicthumbs]

What's Roger Wilco?

Mumble is just a VoIP chat room. It's intended as an open-source alternative to Teamspeak and Ventrilo, two often-used VoIP programs (which happen to be popular among gamers).

 

[Svartalf]

What's Roger Wilco?

Another thing like Teamspeak, that's also commercial like the the others you mention. Roger Wilco was, to the best of my recollection, one of the first programs of this nature.

 

[Trip]

Mumble is just a VoIP chat room. It's intended as an open-source alternative to Teamspeak and Ventrilo, two often-used VoIP programs (which happen to be popular among gamers).

I thought Mumble was Jabber based and offered the very cool feature of directional sound in games?
There was a couple coming out for Linux and that could have been the other one. I'll go check brb..

EDIT: Na.. for the Jabber part I was getting it mixed up with GOIM.
It does do the positional sound though which is pretty cool

 

[Svartalf]

I thought Mumble was Jabber based and offered the very cool feature of directional sound in games?
There was a couple coming out for Linux and that could have been the other one. I'll go check brb..

That would be correct- so long as the title has a bolt-on that gives out position info for it to work.

 

[Trip]

That would be correct- so long as the title has a bolt-on that gives out position info for it to work.

Cheers Svartalf, just beat me to it

 

[DasFool]

I run a Ventrilo server for free on my home windows machine (only supports up to 8 simultaneous users, but that's plenty for me) and I'd love to be able to use it for voip with my Pandora, unfortunately there isn't a linux version of Ventrilo yet... Are any of the voip server/client applications you guys are talking about either open source or usable on both windows and linux machines?

Edit: ok lrn2read DasFool. I just did my own research and it looks like Mumble is cross-platform

 

[Svartalf]

Edit: ok lrn2read DasFool. I just did my own research and it looks like Mumble is cross-platform

Heh... And, better yet, it's now got a plug-in for ioquake3 supporting the positional audio, thanks to Ryan Gordon... The take-away would be if it's not presenting a big overhead, there's no sense for someone to not make this thing work on Pandora.

 

[Rayek]

So, is Skype not possible? VoIP seems to be the best there... I've used it on various platforms and have been happy.

Ah, it's not open source... Crap.

 

[sindbad]

So, is Skype not possible? VoIP seems to be the best there... I've used it on various platforms and have been happy.

Ah, it's not open source... Crap.
It would be possible with the company's cooperation. Also, there have been thoughts about using the skype for maemo, but it may not be possible and the user would have to get and install it, however complicated that may be.

 

[Trip]

So, is Skype not possible? VoIP seems to be the best there... I've used it on various platforms and have been happy.

Ah, it's not open source... Crap.
It would be possible with the company's cooperation. Also, there have been thoughts about using the skype for maemo, but it may not be possible and the user would have to get and install it, however complicated that may be.

The main problem with Skype (IMO) is that it's only compatible with itself, you can't chat to anyone but other Skype users.
VOIP is really just starting to take off these days with mobile phones starting to use WiFi networks and VOIP software, not just the phone companies networks. It seems pretty pointless to use a program that restricts the user so much when there are a ton of other clients available that can all work together fine + in most cases even have better audio quality.

Don't confuse programs like Skype or Gizmo with software like Mumble. Anything that is Sip compatible will be great for normal chitchat with friends either to a computer or telephone. Mumble is only good for computer to computer talk like Ventrilo or Teamspeak.

The reason that mumble will be good on the Pandora is that it's completely geared towards gaming. It's open source, has web software which lets you see who's on the server etc., has the very cool positional audio, shows you what servers your friends are already playing on and has the ability to sacrifice voice quality for better bandwidth when needed.

If it were to get ported, you will also be able to use your Pandora for your voice communications (freeing up system resources for the actual game) whilst doing your gaming on the pc. This way if your PC crashes out or freezes up for some reason, you won't loose contact with your friends and you can let them know what the problem is

EDIT: Missing info.

 

[mindlord]

The other half of the coin is something like this:
Twinkle Softphone

Which is a true IP telephony product that when linked to a SIP gateway (There are a few free ones especially in Europe) that allows you to take and make calls on the standard telephone networks.

If you're really into "free" IP phone service you could try something like:

Setting up your own SIP using a very simple Asterisk PBX at home on a pretty crappy box. You could then take and make calls using your home phone line using Twinkle on your Pandora any time you were in a hotspot.

If you're not in a hotspot, or don't have twinkle turned on, Asterisk could take messages for you and inform you when you became available.

Obviously not something for the feint of heart, but still might be an interesting project if someone wanted to try it. I might.

 

[Trip]

I've heared good things about Twinkle but I've not got around to trying it yet. I might have a mess about setting up some sip software on my home server this weekend

I used to use OpenWengo/WengoPhone (when it was only a beta version) to have video chat conversations with a friend over in Singapore and it was awesome.. when it didn't crash out. The full screen video worked perfectly and was an absolute joy to use, it didn't even lag

 

[mindlord]

I might have a mess about setting up some sip software on my home server this weekend

I'm interested to hear about your findings. I'm no big fan of cell phones (I don't even own one) but having a wifi phone available for the odd call would be nice.

 

[Svartalf]

Don't confuse programs like Skype or Gizmo with software like Mumble. Anything that is Sip compatible will be great for normal chitchat with friends either to a computer or telephone. Mumble is only good for computer to computer talk like Ventrilo or Teamspeak.

Heh... Indeed.

1) There's SIP compatible programs out there that will work on this once recompiled- and that's all they really need.
2) Gizmo and Skype have ARM Linux versions built for Maemo machines- this means if you ask nicely enough, Skype will do a Pandora version as will The Gizmo Project.
3) The positional audio they do in Mumble rocks. With a handful of games now (as opposed to only a couple before Ryan did his magic...) there will be more once people see this stuff work and see that it's not too difficult to add Mumble to their games.

 

[Trip]

I might have a mess about setting up some sip software on my home server this weekend

I'm interested to hear about your findings. I'm no big fan of cell phones (I don't even own one) but having a wifi phone available for the odd call would be nice.

No probs mindlord. If I get around to it I'll happily PM you to let you know how I get on
I'm not a huge fan of mobiles either it's got to be said. I've got a pay as you go phone and only put £20 credit on it in the last 2-3 years. I don't even use my phone enough to loose it like all my friends seem to do with theirs :lol:

 

[javaJake]

Setting up your own SIP using a very simple Asterisk PBX at home on a pretty crappy box. You could then take and make calls using your home phone line using Twinkle on your Pandora any time you were in a hotspot.

Any suggestions on how to get started?

 

[mindlord]

Any suggestions on how to get started?

I am afraid not. However, Asterisk is a package in the Ubuntu repos so it can't be too terrible a beast to configure.

 

[Trip]

Any suggestions on how to get started?

I am afraid not. However, Asterisk is a package in the Ubuntu repos so it can't be too terrible a beast to configure.

Famous last words. See you all in a couple of years :lol: