SIP(Session Initiate Protocol) Phone or Voice over Internet Protocol
If you are runing X-Lite on a Dell 1521 inspiron laptop suggest you look at "sflphone" instead seems to work a bit better than X-Lite no phone book though. We would like to here from you if you are having problems with X-Lite on other equipment.
Recently SoSLUG tried to get a SIP Phone to work with our network this took more time than we imagined not because it was overly complex but because the information to configure on Linux system is damn hard to find. Lets highlight the good points about this application, it looks like a phone, with the exception that it is software it operates like any other phone and the sound quality compares favorably with that of a land based phone.
VoIP Service Provider
There are several VoIP service providers out there we chose this one and I would go so far as to say we recommend them Sipgate registration is free you are given a number suitable for your location in this case Southend so that is an 01702 number registered to your email address. Once you have signed up, for nothing you have a local telephone number that you can take anywhere in the country and still receive your phone calls to this local number.
How Does Sipgate Work
- Register your email address and obtain your local number from Sipgate
- Advertise your new number to your friends
- When your number is dialed it is routed to you provided you are on any Internet capable network you are connected to (certain firewalls can block these protocols used by Sipgate)
- All calls regardless of distance using VoIP to VoIP via Sipgate is free (By that we mean both client software are sipgate registered users)
- Voicemail messages can be left and forwarded to your email.
- All calls to this local number (to you) are free, the person calling you is charged at the rate for the network they are using
- Duplex communication works well on most standard supplied hardware Laptops and PC's.
- To make calls using this technology a deposit needs to be made with Sipgate
- Calls can be made to any full national or international number using accepted Std code(s)
- No calls to emergency services are possible using this software
- Tariffs via VoIP are much cheaper than most other phone networks (Checkout Sipgate1000 for even cheaper calls)
- Cockatoo
- Ekiga: SIP, H.323 audio and video softphone for various unices
- Kphone
- Linphone audio and video SIP softphone for Linux and Windows XP
- minisip cross-platform SIP softphone, Linux, Windows XP and soon Windows Mobile 2003 SE
- MjUA: simple cross-platform SIP softphone, written in java, based on MjSip stack
- OpenSIPStack MPL licensed SIP stack with ENUM, Presence (XMPP/SIMPLE) and NAT traversal. Reference implementation of Session Border Controller (OpenSBC) available.
- OpenZoep: GPL telephone and IM messaging client engine
- Peers Minimalist SIP softphone written in java (tested on linux and windows)
- PhoneGaim Obsolete
- PJSUA: Command line SIP UA with SIMPLE, IM, call transfer, RTCP/RTCP, etc.
- QuteCom ex-OpenWengo: a fully SIP compliant multiplatform softphone with many features
- SFLphone, open-source multiplatform multi-protocol VoIP client
- Shtoom Obsolete: SIP softphone in Python, runs on Windows, Mac, Linux
- SipTheeSkype from mhspot.com Skype SIP UA - Multiplatform - Open Source
- sipXezPhone ("sipX easy phone") from SIPfoundry based on sipXtapi
- sipXphone from SIPfoundry, previously known as the Pingtel phone
- Twinkle
- YATE: YateClient is multiprotocol and multiplatform phone with H.323, SIP and IAX support.
- YeaPhone: A SIP softphone for the Yealink USB-P1K handset based on the libLinphone backend
Application Software
Info Source http://voip-info.org SIP Clients (UA's)
Linux clients:
X-Lite is not the only Linux application you can use there are many out there, but so far it is the only one that has the look and feel of, or resemblance to a phone. X-Lite does have some problems though, there may be others we have missed but you can always let us know.
You can download X-Lite Version 2 for Linux here: [http://tinyurl.com/xlite-linux x-lite version 2]
You will need to open a terminal session and use Gunzip X-Lite_Installer.tar.gz to uncompress the file then open archive file.
* X-Lite configuration more difficult than it should be
* Synchronisation of phone book not possible to Sipgate account website
* Category selection not possible within phone book
* With very large phone books unit has no search facility
* No alpha character selection for sorting by name or number
* Some configuration settings seem to do nothing and only labeled numerically eg.(0)????
* Software version for Linux lags behind that of Windowz (never a good thing)
* Calls not easily selectable from X-Lite phone book
* Software is a commercial product not open source and provided by another company not Sipgate (Shame!!)
X-Lite Configuration for Linux
Login to your sipgate account Sipgate only after you have logged on select this link Linux X-Lite config be sure to read the entire page as this has the configuration you need for a Linux setup. In short you need to copy and paste everything in red after you have tunned your audio settings so ensure you have your headset or "mic" and "speakers".
Audio Tuning Wizard
To obtain the Audio Tuning Wizard for the xtensoftphone right click almost anywhere on the software application to bring up the context sensitive menu step through each of the screens shown.
Conclusion
We like this software despite the fact it is not open source. However we crave for something better than X-Lite that is open and free, that have features that work and work well.
