# Video chat



## Hossein (Jan 31, 2015)

Which application do you advise for video chat?


----------



## jrm@ (Jan 31, 2015)

I guess the most promising option will be WebRTC-supported browsers.  If you want to try it now, I think the latest Firefox has support for it.  It's called 'Hello'.  I tried it briefly and it was flaky.


----------



## protocelt (Feb 1, 2015)

I concur. Firefox Hello does work for me, but I could only get it to detect the audio input/output devices correctly when using audio/pulseaudio, which I'm in no hurry to use with my everyday installation.


----------



## abishai (Feb 1, 2015)

What about net-im/uTox ?


----------



## KNOStic (Feb 22, 2015)

I highly recommend net/linphone. It builds nicely from ports, but the package does not include video support so you will need to build it from ports. I've been happy with it ever since Microsoft killed off the existing Skype.

Edit: To add as to the reason why I recommend Linphone so highly for this purpose, it has been ported to everything from Linux to Windows to OS X to iOS. It is truly platform-independent and works with anything.


----------



## Hossein (Feb 23, 2015)

abishai said:


> What about net-im/uTox ?


I've installed it. How should I run it?


----------



## fernandel (Feb 24, 2015)

Did you try http://www.freshports.org/net-im/jitsi/


----------



## jrm@ (Feb 25, 2015)

Hossein said:


> I've installed it. How should I run it?



Simply running `utox` works here.  If you want to see the binaries installed by a package you can doing something like `pkg info -l uTox | grep bin`.


----------



## serjsk8 (May 10, 2015)

protocelt said:


> I concur. Firefox Hello does work for me, but I could only get it to detect the audio input/output devices correctly when using audio/pulseaudio, which I'm in no hurry to use with my everyday installation.


Hello Protocelt,
Could you explain to me how you used audio/pulseaudio
Thanks!


----------



## MarcoB (Jun 3, 2015)

Does anyone here has uTox running on FreeBSD (especially audio input)? It doesn't select the correct audio input device and it seems impossible to change that.


----------



## rabfulton (Aug 5, 2015)

MarcoB said:


> Does anyone here has uTox running on FreeBSD (especially audio input)? It doesn't select the correct audio input device and it seems impossible to change that.



Just had this problem myself, emailed the port maintainer who had the solution.


```
[oss]
device = /dev/dsp
capture = /dev/dsp4
```

to $HOME/.alsoftrc

see also /usr/local/etc/openal-soft/alsoftrc.sample


----------



## Beastie7 (Aug 5, 2015)

I'd be nice if FreeBSD had its' own SIP daemon for video conferencing. Jabber is a huge monoculture.


----------



## rabfulton (Aug 5, 2015)

net-im/uTox seems really good, just need to convince the rest of the world to ditch skype....


----------



## MarcoB (Aug 5, 2015)

rabfulton said:


> Just had this problem myself, emailed the port maintainer who had the solution.
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



Yes, this seems to work. Thanks for the pointer!


----------



## fernandel (Aug 22, 2015)

I did install uTox too and looks it works. I have a problem with sound - there are so loud echo. I didn't try to talk yet. Are there any manuals for the uTox, please?


----------



## teo (Aug 22, 2015)

This gets interesting, in the end, free software it seems that it will have its own support for video chat. Some comments from Linux users, they say that the application Hello goes luxurious, and does not spend many system resource. I would like proving the application (uTox and Jitsi) As also Hello.


----------



## grahamperrin@ (May 30, 2016)

KNOStic said:


> Edit: To add as to the reason why I recommend Linphone so highly for this purpose, it has been ported to everything from Linux to Windows to OS X to iOS. It is truly platform-independent and works with anything.



Linphone-web forced discontinuation (2015-12-17)

Still, I'm grateful for the reminder about Linphone. I haven't done much with VoIP since the era of Gizmo5.


----------



## cpm@ (Jul 31, 2016)

Firefox Hello will be removed from FF49

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1287827


----------



## Oko (Jul 31, 2016)

Hossein said:


> Which application do you advise for video chat?


This is one of the most frequently asked question and one of the most annoying question for a UNIX guy like myself to answer. The reason is following. OP asks the question about video chat application even though she/he is really asking for a proprietary Skype client. Namely for better of worse lousy Skype protocol has won the video/audio chat wars just like lousy VHS won similar battle in 1980s. The protocol is proprietary, closed source, and only the proprietary vendor can release the FreeBSD client for it. Proprietary vendor, in this case NSA pardon Microsoft, does that not out of goodness if its heart but because of the financial benefit or in this case so that the big brother can listen to your conversation.

Now lets for a second pretend that OP asked really about video/audio chat client. I come here and tell you that pjsua which is not ported to FreeBSD but works like a charm on OpenBSD is the best SIP video/audio client. No nonsense CLI, open source SIP protocol which is used as a building block for many top notch proprietary vidoe/audio clients were privacy is of concern.  How will that benefit OP anyhow? Namely OP wants to talk to somebody. With probability 1 the other party is technically clueless and have heard only about Skype (maybe WebEx if it is a U.S. based business partner). How will the fact that pjsua is the best of the best (this is now direct link to the project)

http://www.pjsip.org/

benefit OP? It will not in any shape or form. FreeBSD or for that matter any BSDs are not commonly used as a desktop OS and not fully polished end products (Surprisingly Open is probably the most usable as Desktop OS). As such they are not target platform for any proprietary vendor which a scientific computing guy like me makes really sad (how wonderful would be to be able to use MATLAB on FreeBSD or GPU cards and ditch Red Hat). There is nothing that BSDs can do different to change this situation. So pull that smart phone of yours and just make a damn Skype call.

For the end of this long boring post I will tell you little story from this year BSDCan held in Ottawa. For some reason I got to share a room with one of OpenBSD alpha-males developers. First night I wanted to check on my kids who were at grandma's place in Cleveland U.S. and he wanted to do that with his kids in Germany. I pulled my Android phone and my Skype video call over WiFi well aware that every word will be recorded by NSA. He did the same with his kids in Germany fully aware of the lack of privacy. Did we feel bad about it? Not for a second. We have nothing to hide. We are just two fathers who were missing our kids. We used technically the easiest solution to accomplish the task. That evening we had a diner with bunch of other OpenBSD guys and they did the same while we discussed *tor* network and how to game the guys from the office next to mine who have 15 million grant from one of three letter agencies to hack into *tor* network.


----------



## jrm@ (Aug 1, 2016)

Oko said:


> I come here and tell you that pjsua which is not ported to FreeBSD but works like a charm on OpenBSD...


I don't know anything about pjsua/pjsip, but I see a FreeBSD pjsip port.


----------



## Oko (Aug 1, 2016)

jrm said:


> I don't know anything about pjsua/pjsip, but I see a FreeBSD pjsip port.


pjsua is just a library and CLI client. pjsip is (I think) a basic GUI SIP client written as a proof of concept around pjsua library. I forgot to mention in my first post   that pjsua supports strong cryptography. We can try it once if you want instead of Skype. What sucks of course is that if you don't have fixed IP you need to use somebody's proxy server. There are very few free proxy servers left. I used in the past ekiga's and iptel proxy servers.

This is my .pjsua.ekiga


```
--clock-rate=44100
--registrar=sip:ekiga.net
--id=sip:username@ekiga.net
--realm=*
```

And this is the .pjsua.iptel



```
--clock-rate=44100
--registrar=sip:iptel.org
--id=sip:username@iptel.org
--realm=*
--username=me
--passwrod=xxx
```

The good news is that at least here in U.S. my dynamic IP is changing so infrequently that we don't need proxy server.


----------



## hruodr (Jul 7, 2019)

Oko said:


> I come here and tell you that pjsua which is not ported to FreeBSD but works like a charm on OpenBSD is the best SIP video/audio client.



Indeed I know it from OpenBSD and is a very nice Softphone.

net/pjsip as FreeBSD package does not include the client `pjsua`, 
but if you compile the port, you can configure it to get `pjsua`.

The problem: I do not get audio. Dif someone got `pjsua` work?

I is there a SIP softphone running without problems in FreeBSD?


----------



## toorski (Jul 7, 2019)

Back in late 90’s, there was a nice video chat app called *CuSeeMe* for MSOS and its variants (with similar names which I forgot) for Linux and MacOS. If I remember correctly, Linux also had server (called Marshal?) for its binary client. Now, I wonder what happened to all that tech.
Then and now, there are also *murmur* (server) and its *mumble* (client) for VoIP that runs on AnyOS. If some genius adds video stream to it, there could be another multi-platform VVC app. Better yet, there should be one inside today’s super WWW browser(s), as add-on or plugin for VideoVoiceChat. Until then, we just have to wait for a lonesome teenager stuck in his bedroom who will develop such utilities out of boredom 

Edit: Maybe, I'm out of touch with current tech I guess the in-browser video chat systems do exist. But, I don't want to test the tech in flirtymania to see if it offers 2-way video with sound.


----------



## Alain De Vos (Jul 7, 2019)

jitsi was not working for me.
linphone and utox compile and start. 
[ PS : For the linphone android app people complain on crashes]


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

And all this softphones behave different on different sip servers. Perhaps due to NAT traversal.

I do not get `pjsua` on OpnBSD working on iptel.org, but with different configuration on
callcentric.com and sipgate.de.

Sipgate needs the stun server, although they recommend not to use it. I configured them with udp, I did not manage
them to work with tcp. VoIP seems to me not a simple thing.

But I have first to solve the problem with FreeBSD audio devices.


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

toorski said:


> Edit: Maybe, I'm out of touch with current tech I guess the in-browser video chat systems do exist. But, I don't want to test the tech in flirtymania to see if it offers 2-way video with sound.



See sipml5 and jssip, WebRTC, WebSocket.

But I want to try first the traditional form.

FreeBSD audio seems to be not so simple to deal with.


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

Alain De Vos said:


> linphone and utox compile and start.



As also `pjsua`, but did they work with a SIP server?

They are a bloat, but I would be happy to have first a working SIP softphone in FreeBSD.


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 8, 2019)

hruodr said:


> FreeBSD audio seems to be not so simple to deal with.


https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sound
`cat /dev/sndstat`

To charge default sound device
`sysctl hw.snd.default_unit=x`


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

Thanks, there I see pcmN devices, but in /dev I have dsp devices and no pcm.


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 8, 2019)

That is what my /dev looks like too.
`cat /dev/sndstat`
Installed devices:
pcm0: <IDT 92HD90BXX (Analog 2.0+HP/2.0)> (play/rec) default
pcm1: <IDT 92HD90BXX (Analog)> (play/rec)
pcm2: <Intel Cougar Point (HDMI/DP 8ch)> (play)
pcm3: <Intel Cougar Point (HDMI/DP 8ch)> (play)
pcm4: <Intel Cougar Point (HDMI/DP 8ch)> (play)
No devices installed from userspace.

# `ls /dev/pcm*`
ls: No match.

# `ls /dev/dsp*`
/dev/dsp0.0    /dev/dsp1.0    /dev/dsp2.0    /dev/dsp3.0    /dev/dsp4.0


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

If you do `ls /dev/dsp`, you will get something you do not get with `ls /dev/dsp*`.

Why?????


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 8, 2019)

From the above manual:


> hw.snd.default_unit
> Default sound card    for systems with multiple sound    cards.    When
> using devfs(5), the default device    for _/dev/dsp_.  Equivalent to a
> symlink from _/dev/dsp_ to _/dev/dsp${hw.snd.default___unit}_.



/dev/dsp is like a symlink


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

I did not know that symlinks does not appear with "ls *" and never tried it.

I got now iptel to work with OpenBSD pjsua without doing anything new. The problem lied probably at iptel.

Now I have to get it working with FreeBSD. But how?!

I get:



> You have 1 active call
> Current call id=0 to sip:music@iptel.org [CONFIRMED]



But no audio, although I should hear music according to the above. And not only with pjsua I get no audio.


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

If someone wants to help testing and get it working, at best make a SIP account at iptel.org (running kamailio that I
also installed). Let us say you has username NNNNNN and pasword pass-of-NNNNNN.

Then you can put the following in a file to start `pjsua` with configuration options:



> pjsua \
> --no-tcp \
> --registrar=sip:iptel.org \
> --id=sip:NNNNNN@iptel.org \
> ...



Then you run it. It works with OpenBSD. For calling you press m<ret> and then something like:
sip:user@ip
for example for testing:

sip:music@iptel.org
sip:echo@iptel.org

With the first you hear music, with the second you hear whatever you say. To hang up you press: h<ret>

Let us see if someone get working this piece of software running.


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 8, 2019)

I see that pjSIP uses audio/portaudio maybe you need this patch that @tobik worked up:








						Getting audio/spotifyd to use the correct sound device /dev/dsp4.0?
					

I built audio/spotifyd with the PortAudio option and got it running with a minimal configuration file. The laptop is now recognised by the Spotify app on my Android phone as a Spotify Connect device. I can hand over the stream and spotifyd seems to work perfectly with it.  My problem: spotifyd...




					forums.freebsd.org
				








						[ports] Revision 494248
					






					svnweb.freebsd.org
				




I have a full week ahead of me and cannot help much.


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 8, 2019)

I also wanted to point out that net/pjsip does not have audio enabled by default accrording to freshports.


> SOUND=off: Sound (audio) support


----------



## Lamia (Jul 8, 2019)

https://www.freshports.org/net-im/jitsi/
https://*meet*.jit.si/
https://*jitsi*.org

My concept of a video chat is different from a voip call/chat though the underlying technologies (& libraries e.g. pjsip) could be the same.


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> maybe you need this patch



Well, I do not do anymore `sysctl hw.snd.default_unit=x` and plugged the headphones and micro in the
rear.

Now I hear music, but a call to eco does not work, the very call fails. Also calls with callcentric as server and
to the echo there (sip:17771234567@callcentric.com).


----------



## hruodr (Jul 8, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> net/pjsip does not have audio enabled by default



Yes, I have it enabled, I tried with both, SDL enabled and disabled, without success.

It seems /dev/dsp cannot be used for both directions?

UPDATE: I just compiled it with audio disabled, and I continue to hear music, but echo does not work.

BTW.


> # cat /dev/sndstat
> Installed devices:
> pcm0: <ATI R6xx (HDMI)> (play)
> pcm1: <Realtek ALC892 (Rear Analog)> (play/rec) default
> ...


----------

