Who would have known that PCs would usher in the
futuristic era promised in the 1950s? With the advent of PC-based phone
calls combined with video, you can have your picture phone, although
without a cool-looking retro enclosure. And, you can have all this on
Linux. Still no personal jetpacks, though.
The latest entry into
the video phone arena is Ekiga, which focuses on video communications.
Ekiga supports video
communications with both Windows Messenger and Windows NetMeeting users
running on standard protocols.
Ekiga, formerly called
GnomeMeeting, acts as both an H.323 video-conferencing system and as a
SIP phone. With H.323 video-conferencing you can establish video
meetings with NetMeeting users. Note that this does not include the
shared-whiteboard features of NetMeeting, alas. With SIP support, you
can make phone calls over the Internet to users of Windows Messenger, or
any of the many Internet phone packages that support SIP.
With SIP
support, you can hold, transfer, and forward calls. You can use SIP's
instant messaging features to send text messages to other users. As with
other SIP packages, you can make phone calls from your Linux PC to real
phones, but you will need to purchase an account with a PC-to-Phone
service.
Ekiga supports Video4Linux, Video4Linux 2 and Firewire
cameras, along with OSS and ALSA-supported soundcards. And Ekiga
provides a configuration assistant to help you set up your hardware.
This goes a long ways toward solving the long-time hardware
configuration problems on Linux, especially for video hardware. The
assistant is a welcome addition.
Ekiga isn't the only package that
supports Internet-based phone calls. Most other packages, though, come
from the world of instant messaging rather than video conferencing, the
focus of Ekiga.
Gizmo, previously
covered, provides SIP phone calls and Internet chat features. Gizmo
supports IM chat with GoogleTalk users, and works with more than one
Voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP, network. The Gizmo map-it feature
allows you to see where callers are located. Gizmo even provides voice
mail for when you cannot answer your PC calls. And, you can record your
calls. Think of the applications of this in politics. Gizmo supports
Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Skype, a commercial
service, supports Linux as well, along with Windows, Mac OS X, and
Pocket PC handhelds. MiniSIP, also supports
Pocket PC handheld devices, as well as Linux, Windows, and embedded
Linux systems such as the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet and the Linux
Familiar distributions which support Linux on Pocket PC devices that
normally run Windows Mobile software. Note that you likely have to delve
into the code to make things work well on these platforms.
SIPSet (provides a user interface on top of the Vovida SIP
software. SIPSet supports SIP phone calls, as you'd expect. The parent
organization, Vovida, aims to provide open-source communications
software for the data-communications and telecommunications markets.
Other SIP phone software includes LinPhone and KPhone.
In other news, Fedora Core 5 should be out. Fedora is the
spin-off of Red Hat Linux when Red Hat moved to an all-subscription
enterprise-only business model.
Fedora is free and provides
frequent updates. Fedora Core 5 improves the GNOME user interface on
Fedora, adding a lot of bubbles to the look and feel, adds more security
features and generally suns smoother than the previous Core 4. Fedora
Core 5 provides updated versions of Firefox (1.5) and the OpenOffice.org
office suite (2.0.2). For the first time, Fedora includes Mono and
Mono-based applications such as the F-Spot photo suite, the Tomboy notes
software and the impressive Beagle search facility. Mono is the
multi-platform implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework and system.
And, just mentioning Microsoft can be highly controversial in the Linux
community. Including Mono is a brave and useful step. --Eric
Foster-Johnson
