A good Russian alternative to Skype?
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(Having lost access to my previous e-mail account, due to a stupid error, made during my recent experiments with trying to install Trisquel, and make the nouveau driver run, on my main computer...) :P
After creating a new e-mail account on the Mail.ru service, today, and exploring its different configuration options, again - where a video conferencing software, that is part of it, can also be used - I came to know of the existence of a Free Software client (for GNU/Linux, and that one can install on his/her computer, instead of using the web-based client, on his/her webmail account) for that same video conferencing network.
Not only that, but checking it's web page, I read something about an "open protocol", that this network uses - http://mailruagent.sourceforge.net/.
(But, because where that term is used, in the description, the link just sends us to the network's main web page, in Russian, I'm left with no more information about it...)
The software, from what I can see here - http://code.google.com/p/linux-agent/downloads/list - and, here - http://code.google.com/p/frol9999-libs/downloads/list - seems to have binary packages for Debian/Ubuntu. (So, they should run on Trisquel also...) But, I can see the links to it's source code, also, on Sourceforge - http://sourceforge.net/projects/mailruagent/.
I know there are already Free Software clients for video conferencing. (Although, I don't know if there's any that uses an "open protocol".) And, anti-social as I am, I don't use video conferencing software, and I have no one with whom I would like to experiment this network with... :)
But, being this network part of the most used webmail service in Russia, I suspect this network to be of a superior quality, compared to other(?) "open protocol" ones... (At least, for the people using it in Russia. Since, if it works in the same way as Skype, from what I know, it needs good P2P connections to nearby nodes...)
Anyway...
I'm just leaving here this information so that those of you, who use video conferencing, can know of the existence of this (Free Software, using an "open protocol") client, and for anyone who wants to, to experiment with this.
(If anyone does try it out, please leave here your impressions...) ;)
Jitsi is free software and uses XMPP or SIP[0] for video conference.
They have their own XMPP service[1] or you can install in your own server.
[0] https://jitsi.org/Main/Screenshots
[1] https://jit.si (name at domain)
Is Jitsi in the Trisquel repos? I searched for it looking for "jitsi", but did not find it. Is it under a different name, or not in the repos?
If it's not in the Trisquel repos, is there a reason it's not in there?
It's wasn't easy to package. Debian has added it recently and it's in
Sid only as of now, Ubuntu doesn't include it yet. Future releases
should solve this.
There might be a PPA with Jitsi. Upstream has a repo,
https://jitsi.org/Main/DebianRepository, I don't know how well it works.
Jitsi is wonderful. But it can be slow for video conference in old computers.
I tried in one with CPU Intel Celeron from 2004. Java/OpenJDK uses 50% or more of CPU and it do the video very very slow but good for audio only.
Edit: The best for video and audio in old computers/smaller resources via XMPP is GNOME Empathy (Pidgin can work with audio and video, but sometime doesn't works very well with video).
Cool, I will give it a try. Thanks for recommending it Icaro,and thanks for exxplaining why it's not in the repos Michal
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On 2013-10-08 14:26, name at domain wrote:
> I'm just leaving here this information so that those of you, who use video conferencing, can know
of the existence of this (Free Software, using an "open protocol")
client, and for anyone who wants to, to experiment with this.
I'll add something else. If you haven't looked at it/tried it, I suggest
you check out WebRTC and its progress in cureent and coming versions of
Firefox (and other browsers).
F.
- --
Fabián Rodríguez
http://fsf.magicfab.ca
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Informing myself about XMPP and SIP, indeed, I already suspected that other Free Software programs also used "open protocols"...
And, yes. Now that MagicFab mentioned "WebRTC", I remember reading something about an implementation, that was planned, to incorporate video conferencing into Firefox itself.
I'll inform myself more about this last option... Since that, if it's indeed implemented, then, that would be the best solution of all. Since, much more people use Firefox itself, than any Mail.ru service.
It's great to see that, in this aspect, things are evolving in the right direction.
WebRTC works since Firefox/Abrowser 22.
https://trisquel.info/forum/web-rtc-and-abrowser-21
https://trisquel.info/forum/right-time-insist-your-friends-ditching-facebook-and-skype-webrtc
Je... I really am anti-social... :)
Thanks for the tip.
I'll use it, then, if I ever need it.
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