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Skype VoIP Software Released For Linux
pmf writes "Skype Technologies has just released a free beta version of their software for Linux. Skype is well known P2P VoIP technology that, according to them: '...is addressing all the problems of legacy VoIP solutions: bad sound quality, difficult to set up and configure, and the need for expensive, centralized infrastructure.'"
Seeing as how this is from the Kazaa people, are we to expect spyware in this product?
please read the EULA.
The most information I've found is that the software is made by the makers of KaZaa, who is notorious for trying to make money off of P2P. Does Skype have a business plan? Is there spyware/adware/malware? Anyone know?
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
Before you download and configure this, test your connection out so see if it can handle VoIP. You can also play with different codecs to see if one is better than the other over your connection.
-ben
Another thing the Linux platform has thus been missing: Spyware.
I highly doubt that the guys who made Kazaa have taken some great leap into the world of moral business. Bastards.
Skype is hype...
* Skype is proprietary.
* Skype is using a proprietary protocol that no VoIP carriers/providers will be using.
* Skype has better sound quality? Let me laugh, it just happens that Skype is only able to do audio, so all your upload can be devoted to audio.
OK, Skype is a nice toy for Windows users. For Linux users, there is GnomeMeeting (http://www.gnomemeeting.org) and Linphone.
Sez on the linked page this is from the same folks that brought you KaZaa!
Great. The folks that introduced spyware EULAs to file sharing now want to handle your phone service. OSS or not, can they be trusted to provide any more free downloads?
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
I guess Amiga is next in line.
Free World Dialup makes a good product which I find is better and is the superior option of choices. You can find this with the Google searches for terms like Free World Dialup with the quotes surrounding.
Read journal when you are not understand
Skype claims P2P but the voice has to go through at least one hop, so the latency is pretty poor and you need other (hijacked) nodes. Check out this VoIP system, which has low latency, direct peer to peer communications even through NAT on both sides. Oh, and blowfish for encryption so good... it may be illegal in your country!
In related news, the baby bells have tapped the RIAA for their team of lawyers to start tracking down individuals that are using their communication networks and are not paying access fees like other phone companies do to operate over their lines. Then they will sue them until everyone gives up computers and goes back to taking the needle of the record so they can ring up the operator for the klondike 5 number of their friend down the street. I can't wait.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
Overseas, I've had less luck. From my place in Central NY, my Skype calls to a friend in Amsterdam are generally intolerable, although he reports that it works fine when he talks to his brother in Philly. I've had poor but acceptable connections using Skype to talk to a friend in Madrid.
Voice quality has continued to improve slightly with each new release of Skype. But for me, the verdict is Skype is sensational within North America, and barely tolerable or outright unusable for calling overseas.
Still, I wish everyone had broadband and Skype. Even without taking the fact that it's free, it just sounds measurably better than standard long distance calls within the US.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
At this point Skype for Linux is being offered without the SkypeOut service that allows calls to go to any telephone, not just other Skype users. Still, it's great to bring new platforms and more users onto this system. Bring on the OS X version!
From the FAQ SkypeOut (what enables to call external phone numbers) is not enabled for the Linux version, and that could be what makes it worth, or different from other available solutions.... or is something common and widely used?
they internally alpha'd a Mac version as of June 16, 2004 (which went well) and expect it will take 2-3 months more for it to show up.
Are you talking about Ogg Vorbis or Ogg FLAC or Ogg Speex? Speex is better for that kind of task. :-)
"Speex is an Open Source/Free Software patent-free audio compression format designed for speech" and speex is part of the xiph foundation
download and burn linux with one click on windows
Where are binaries for other than x86 archs?
Linux is more than just x86...
I like Skype, I just wish my girlfriend didn't sound like a robot half the time.
paul reinheimer
I did. They have changed the EULA since people were upset about the 'third party software' part. It doesn't seem as evil now, but I'm still so wary that I haven't installed it yet.
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
Just mentioning that skype is a cpu hog. This matters because it means it's not great for playing recent video games.
A great alternative is teamspeak which lets groups of players talk. Another alternative (I haven't tried this one) is Ventrillo.
Skype is great if you just want to use your computer for wireless chit chat.
I might as well plug the Jabra BT250 bluetooth headset while I'm at it. Wireless headset with up to 8 hours of talk time. I use this plus teamspeak to give me the freedom to wander my house and not loose contact with my gaming buddies. It also works nicely with my powerbook and my cell phone.
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I support spreading santorum
In my limited testing of Skype it's managed to suck out all my bandwidth...on one occasion it appeared to be using about 80% of processor (AMD64-3000). Since when I have given it a miss.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
So? So were most cablemodems until recently. VoIP is a new technology to the consumer market, it will take a while for one or two standards to settle, and when they do, just like most things like DVD formats and Cable modem protocols and such, firmware gets upgraded and no one cares. Besides, so their proprietary, what di you want to do, take your hardware and move to some other linux-native VoIP provider? Wait...there aren't any.
No excuse, sorry. There exist OPEN standards, PUBLISHED standards out there that are supported by hundreds of hardware and software solutions.
As for "Linux-native" VoIP provider, that makes no sense. Who cares? There are hardware and software solutions available for Linux and utilize existing open and published standards. Do some research on Google to find them.
Who cares what protocol you speak from your headset unit to the 'Net, once it gets to the 'Net it's IP. When it gets to the phone system, it's converted to proprietary digital forms that Sprint or AT&T use, and when it reaches another VoIP carrier, it might convert to another protocol. It doesn't matter though, the frmat is meaningless to the data.
Propretary digital formats? You mean, u-Law? Nice try. Even the larger nascent VoIP providers don't resort to such foolishness because they are able to leverage EXISTING solutions. What is important is to be able to transit between providers easily and seemlessly. Consumers have been asking for this from cellphone providers for YEARS (i.e., locked-in phones) and the FCC and courts have finally taken notice.
There are no pictures in Voice. If you want videoconferencing, use another service. But if you want good audio quality, use a service that utilizes all of your available bandwidth for audio (go figure, a specialized service works better than a general one).
VoIP has been somewhat generalized lately. Packet8 provides a videophone now to customers. Moving from a circuit-switched environment to a packet-switched environment allows all kinds of new things to be done that could not be easily accomplished before across the same infrastructure. SIP, one commonly used VoIP signalling protocol, even includes support for multiple data streams to be handled at once, voice, video, and even text and application data (for IM or whiteboarding, for instance). Don't be so limited in your view.
Nothing beats the ease of setup and use of my new VoIP phone with Packet8. $49 set up fee and they sent me a DTE.
Plug DTE into power, hub and my cordless phone base station and I had dial tone.
They assigned me a local number, so it is a local call from my office.
Free calls worldwide to other Packet8 scuscribers. Unlimited calls in US/Canada for people with regular phones. $20.59/month and that INCLUDES all taxes.
I get to use my cordless phone and speaker phones. I can take the DTE with me and my phone number follows me.
Oh, and Packet8 just introduced *real* E911, for the paranoid among you. (Note: If you take the DTE travelling with you and then call 911, it'll claim you're at your address on file -- back home.)
Father's Day alone saved me the $20 in what would have been LD charges.
For those that love the software phones, Vonage supports one that has a Linux client as well.
And VoicePulse will allow you to set up your own Asterisk server, hook in and use them as a PSTN gateway.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
As someone else mentioned - FreeWorld Dialup is a great way to go for voip:
- standards based
- Free
- Windows, Linux and pocketpc clients available
- Call 800 numbers and more
- Call to/from vonage customers
- get free phone number and have people call you
- Get a wisip phone (WiFi SIP) and you have the closest thing to a IP mobile phone you can get.
FreeWorld Dialup
I'm currently running windows and ipaq (pocketpc 2002) clients fine. And calling my home vonage service - no problem!