FOSS Voip client and howto for Linux?

[willie]

So I've got a voip account and phone number with vitelity.com and would like to make phone calls from my Linux desktop.

I tried setting up Ekiga but there were some annoying obstacles and the program itself doesn't seem that great.

Does anyone have a favorite FOSS VOIP client, and suggestions about configuring it?

I do NOT want Skype, Google Voice, or anything else involving closed-source clients or advertising-spewing servers.  I'm fine with paid services (no ads) and FOSS.

Thanks!

 

[WebSearchingPro]

http://icanblink.com/

You may want to try this one its free for windows/linux.

 

[drmike]

@willie, with vitelity.com, which package did you opt for?  Was looking at their offerings the other day but couldn't figure it out / wasn't clear about price point --- namely on flat rate monthly calling plan.

In the market for the same software for various devices.

 

[willie]

Websearchingpro - thanks, blink looks promising.  I tried installing it on my Fedora 19 desktop and spent hours in dependency hell due to version mismatches etc. but I think I can get it working.  Or I might switch to Debian on the desktop which will hopefully make things easier.

drmike - I went for the cheapest plan, $1.49/month or so for the phone number and something like 1.2 cents per minute for my very low usage.  The flat rate plan is something like $8 a month and is good if you use it a lot.  I set it up some months ago and it seemed straightforward, though maybe they added options or changed something since then.  Right now I just have it forwarded to one of my other phone numbers.  I think that means I pay 1.2 cents a minute for both the inbound and outbound calls during forwarding (2.4 cents a minute total) but it still is very low given my usage.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Since Vitelity is a pre-paid service, an initial $35 pre-paid deposit is required. The $35 will be posted to your account and available for new services such as DIDs (numbers), e911, vFax, etc.

Yikes.  I mean I get it but...  dang... 35 dollars initial deposit?  

Anyways sorry I can't really add too much value to this because i'm also quite oblivious but good luck! 

 

[drmike]

$35 deposit... yeah unsure if they are related to another company I looked at with similar looking website... same deposit amount and they only accepted Amazon's payment method... grr....

 

[Raymii]

I've used voipbuster with linphone (ekiga) in the past with great success and a local number. Had to forward some ports, but it works great. What do you bot Like about it?

 

[willie]

I was ok with the $35 upfront Vitelity deposit because I figured I was going to port a phone number or two to them, and they had a $15 or $20 porting fee at the time.  Now they port for free so at $1.49(?) a month for a phone number, I'm covered for a while.  I'm likely to get another number or two, including possibly an international one (those cost more) if I get the software together, so that will burn through the $35 a bit faster.  There was another thread about voip service providers a few months back, that mentioned some alternatives to Vitelity, but I was already signed up with Vitelity when that thread went up.

Raymii, Ekiga looked mostly ok, it just appears geared towards the ekiga.net voip service and it didn't work when I tried it with Vitelity.   Voipbuster appears to be closed source so I'm not interested in it.

 

[peterw]

I am using justvoip.com which does have a browser client. Working great without installing software.