Linphone 3.5.2 - Video Phone with Instant Messaging

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OscarTalks
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Linphone 3.5.2 - Video Phone with Instant Messaging

#1 Post by OscarTalks »

http://www.linphone.org

Linphone has video and several other features not found in PSIP including:-

Multiple SIP accounts
Initiating of calls from dialpad
Codec management
Calls to some domains that PSIP can't access
Works on my older hardware when PSIP just freezes

It is available for Windows and some mobile phones so OK for chatting cross-platform to friends not on Puppy, though all SIP softphones should really be able to talk to each other anyway.

I recommend disabling the ultra-wideband Speex 32 codec (at the top of the list).
I am using a no-ip hostname as my public (gateway) IP address. Setting a stun server (eg stun.voipbuster.com) in the third option also works for resolving NAT and firewall.
It will make calls to sip addresses without registering with a sip provider.

Here are a few test sip addresses you can call:-

sip:4444@sip2sip.info (echo test with G722 wideband codec)
sip:904@mouselike.org (various tests - PCMU codec)
sip:4151595@services.sip.is (echo and music tests - PCMA codec)
sip:18882472425@tollfree.alcazarnetworks.com (voice interactive info)
sip:411@qxip.net (ask "SIP Sir" anything)

This is all experimental, feel free to report what works and what doesn't, but I've been using it for a while now and find it OK.

Known issues:-

Wizard button doesn't work in all cases, just a helper for setting up a SIP account, easily done manually so not essential.

Two identical dialog boxes may pop up asking for your SIP account password when you add an account in Preferences. Just fill in one, click "OK", wait a few seconds and the other one disappears. You may wish to experiment with filling in both or clicking "Cancel" on the second one.

I find it best to run with the echo cancellation on.

The VP8 video codec seems the one most prone to crashing Linphone and it is at the top of the priorities list in Preferences. If it gives you grief demote it down the list or disable it. This is one of the nice things about having codec management in the GUI.

DOWNLOAD LINKS
Choose the one you need from the list below.
Add the extra ringtones if you want.

Linphone 3.5.2 Slacko533 .pet
download = http://www1.datafilehost.com/d/3f65ba61
md5sum = a083398f46e385b962dc70d91dd782b0

Linphone-3.5.2-Wary5 .PET
download = http://www1.datafilehost.com/d/35a06f5c
md5sum = 3ca989afc2a1459041fd452c54e48f7a

Linphone-3.5.2-i486-Precise .PET
download = http://www.datafilehost.com/d/7ce10ee7
md5sum = 00202ee928642265c0be3c4eb50b159c

Linphone-3.5.2-slacko14.0 .PET
download = http://www1.datafilehost.com/d/01d4e06a
md5sum = a5ad733d13941809758bf8ba35978cad

Linphone 3.5.2 Wheezy .pet
download = http://www.datafilehost.com/download-d28f5ae0.html
md5sum = b509b6f584b81d3473812e8688c8f78a

Linphone Ringtones 3.5.2 (Optional) .pet
download = http://www1.datafilehost.com/d/1e74a590
md5sum = 27bd70874057117a3397dd32f5f193df
Attachments
linphonescreenshot.png
Screenshot of "Call" tab with audio level and connection strength indicators
(47.58 KiB) Downloaded 4510 times
Last edited by OscarTalks on Tue 20 Aug 2013, 20:18, edited 15 times in total.
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#2 Post by OscarTalks »

Version for Wary and Racy


Updates:-

18th January 2013 - Uploaded new build. Added GSM audio codec so all the available ones are in there now. Video is enabled. NLS is included.

15th April 2013 - DOWNLOAD LINK NOW IN FIRST POST
Last edited by OscarTalks on Mon 15 Apr 2013, 12:32, edited 7 times in total.
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#3 Post by OscarTalks »

Here is one I compiled in Precise Puppy. Also OK for Upup Precise.

This one has all available audio and video codecs including gsm, ilbc, amr, g729, Silk (Skype-based) and x264. The sign-in wizard thing is working and the audio seems better on this than on the other versions above.

At around 1.5 MB this .pet is not bad size-wise for a video enabled sip softphone with Instant Messaging.

By the way, Linphone will operate peer-to-peer but it likes you to have some sort of username in the sip address so can be "sip:yourname@ipaddress" or "sip:root@ipaddress".

Otherwise you can sign up with Linphone for your own free SIP address. Other providers are available eg. iptel.org

Some providers will allow you to make cheap calls to phone numbers anywhere in the world. One example is nonoh.net but there are others so shop around.

Updates:-

05th January 2013 - Uploaded new build, just a few changes and it is now a bit smaller than it was. Removed a couple of things that were not needed. NLS now included. Added libcares which may improve performance (?).

15th April 2013 - DOWNLOAD LINK NOW IN FIRST POST
Last edited by OscarTalks on Mon 15 Apr 2013, 12:37, edited 1 time in total.
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linuxcbon
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#4 Post by linuxcbon »

In precise 5.4.3, linphone-3.5.2-pp.pet
Click options preferences :

Code: Select all

(linphone:13467): Gtk-WARNING **: Could not load image 'linphone2.png': Failed to open file '/usr/share/linphone/linphone2.png': No such file or directory

(linphone:13467): Gtk-WARNING **: Could not find signal handler 'linphone_gtk_create_fonics_account'

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OscarTalks
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Location: London, England

#5 Post by OscarTalks »

Hello linuxcbon

Thanks for testing and for the report.

You do get a few warnings and other grumbles in console with Linphone but the essential functions all seem to work (unless you have spotted something that doesn't).

I tried putting an image file into /usr/share/linphone and renaming it 'linphone2.png'. The warning goes away but the image doesn't appear in the gui or anywhere that I can see so it may not be needed.

The 'signal handler' warning probably relates to the wizard which doesn't appear at all in the other Puppy builds (you get a 'signal handler' warning on start) and is just a bit of a gimmick (certainly not essential).

Linphone is developed very much as a multi-platform app so there may be bits of code from other platforms or older versions that stray in there. Also it may be that other Linux distros more bloated than Puppy contain packages which cause a few extra features to build when compiling Linphone in those distros.

Linphone is an app that interests me and I have played around with it quite a bit, but I am still a relative novice with Linux and compiling so if anyone has any ideas about how it could be improved in Puppy I would welcome their input.
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#6 Post by OscarTalks »

Standard Linphone 3.5.2 will not compile in Slacko 5.4 because the newer ffmpeg version causes fatal errors, but CatDude discovered a way of editing the source code so that it will now build. Trade off as things stand is that a couple of the video codecs which are based on ffmpeg are missing but you still have 3 to choose from.

On my machine the VP8 video codec causes crashes but I just disable it. It may work for others. The H264 seems perfectly acceptable ( try the video echo test at sip:9877@qxip.net ) and you have Theora in there as well.

Slacko 5.4 users may wish to test:-

15th April 2013 - DOWNLOAD LINK NOW IN FIRST POST
Last edited by OscarTalks on Mon 15 Apr 2013, 12:42, edited 1 time in total.
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#7 Post by OscarTalks »

Some people are into ringtones I know. The ringtones for Linphone are located in /usr/share/sounds/linphone/rings so you can always place ringtones of your choice in there. The ones that get built when you compile Linphone are .wav files which are quite big and don't compress very much when creating a .pet so I remove all but one of them to keep the package small. This .pet will put three of them back in so you have a bit more of a choice. I quite like the Big Ben one.

15th April 2013 - DOWNLOAD LINK NOW IN FIRST POST
Last edited by OscarTalks on Mon 15 Apr 2013, 12:45, edited 1 time in total.
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laurentius77
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links broken - please mirror

#8 Post by laurentius77 »

It seems that all the Linphone links are broken.
Tried to compile myself the application from source with no success until now.
Can somebody upload linphone packages in another place? I think that all the packages from the forum that exceeds 1MB are lost...
Does this sip client supports TLS+SRTP with certificates?
I need a linux softphone with these capabilities and I couldn't find one...
Thank you.

laurentius77
Posts: 82
Joined: Wed 30 Mar 2011, 07:02

Thank you!

#9 Post by laurentius77 »

Many thanks!

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OscarTalks
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#10 Post by OscarTalks »

Hello laurentius77,

I've moved the download links to Datafilehost for now and put them in the first post.

You do have to jump a few hurdles and avoid a few pitfalls when compiling Linphone. As for TLS it does show in the options but not sure if all SIP providers support it. About SRTP / zRTP I am not sure, but I think these things need to be enabled at compile time and may not work anyway. I may try an experimental build at some point (any preference of Puppy version?) but I wanted to get the package as small as possible with nothing that might disrupt the basic functionality.

General announcement:-
I have included a build for Wheezy in the first post.
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laurentius77
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hello Oscar

#11 Post by laurentius77 »

OscarTalks wrote:Hello laurentius77,

I've moved the download links to Datafilehost for now and put them in the first post.

You do have to jump a few hurdles and avoid a few pitfalls when compiling Linphone. As for TLS it does show in the options but not sure if all SIP providers support it. About SRTP / zRTP I am not sure, but I think these things need to be enabled at compile time and may not work anyway. I may try an experimental build at some point (any preference of Puppy version?) but I wanted to get the package as small as possible with nothing that might disrupt the basic functionality.

General announcement:-
I have included a build for Wheezy in the first post.
It's no about providers because I use it with my oun PBX software.
My favourite distro is Saluki but I couldn't compile a softphone with TLS/SSRTP for it.
Any hy help is apreciated.
Thanks.

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#12 Post by OscarTalks »

Hello laurentius77

Don't know if you are still interested in this. Sorry it has taken a while.

I have compiled a new build of Linphone 3.5.2 in Wary 5.5 with SRTP and ZRTP encryption packages also compiled and added. I have got the account assistant wizard working as well.

Both SRTP and ZRTP (along with SIP-TLS) now show as options which you can select in the Preferences GUI, but I have never used these features. Perhaps you (or anyone else) would care to test them and tell me if they actually work.

I have amended the DOWNLOAD LINK IN THE FIRST POST (The Wary5 one)

This Wary5 Linphone runs in Saluki, but Saluki does not have ffmpeg. You need to install version 0.8.12-1 and you also need libvpx version 1.1.0

These can be installed via PPM if you update the Wary5 repo or download them directly from the official repo here:-

http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_pa ... -1-w5c.pet

http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_pa ... .0-w5c.pet
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#13 Post by OscarTalks »

I have compiled a new build of Linphone 3.5.2 for Slackware 14.0 Slackos.

DOWNLOAD LINK IN FIRST POST AMENDED

This one has all video codecs included, SRTP and ZRTP encryption and the account wizard is working.

The new Linphone (3.6.1) is worth looking at first now, but it uses a different system for the video and I am finding this does not work on all hardware which is why I am not abandoning 3.5.2 yet. If video is important to you and 3.6.1 does not work, Slacko 14.0 users may wish to try this one.

In order to get round the problem of this one not compiling against the newer ffmpeg I compiled ffmpeg 0.8.14 (which is actually quite recent) and set up a build environment with a complete transplant. The .PET package contains the needed ffmpeg libs in a private location so they can coexist peacefully with the native ones. This means the package is larger but it is fully functional with all codecs and nothing gets broken or displaced.
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missing symbolic link

#14 Post by mister_electronico »

In Slacko puppy 5.6 missing symbolic link easy to fix libnotify.so.1

open Terminal:

ln -s /usr/lib/libnotify.so.4 /usr/lib/libnotify.so.1


I have problem with the video showing black screan.

The webcam works seamlessly with the default program Pavrecord of puppy.

In Pavercord work with video4linux device: /dev/video0 320x240

And Linphone with V4L2 320x240 /dev/video0


I don't know if V4L2 is similar to video4linux .

Someone know where I can fit this.

Greetings

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