My situation is this: I want to talk to my dear windows-using friend, over `teh intarweb', and I want him to talk back at me. I'm on linux (debian testing), he's on windows. The catch is: I'm not going to install proprietary software, and none of us are likely to pay any money.

My question is: what solutions are there? Will asterisk do this--and is there a piece of windows software which will work with it? I have seriously no clue exactly what asterisk does. I've also thought about setting up a streaming audio server (icecast sprung to mind); are there any free audio streaming servers for windows? Does any free GNU/Linux IM client do voice?

My main problem is that although I can do a bit of research on the GNU/Linux side, I have no clue about what works on windows. So any tips from people with experience about this would be really great, and really really appreciated.

Thanks for listening --Jonas

it may not be exactly what you are looking for, but maybe teamspeak will work http://www.goteamspeak.com/ If I recall it isn't opensource but it is free for non-commercial use.

Alex

Skype?

There are LOTS of programs that use the SIP protocol that will work, like ekiga (formerly gnome meeting) on linux and Gizmo (linux and windows, but linux version sucks badly). ALl youi need is to go through a free (in most cases) registration for a sip number on someones network, and you're good to go.

skype does the trick

Actually, I did install skype, to try and see if it'd work. It didn't, but I found out that audio input doesn't work in general on my machine--see my sig (at least at the time of writing). However, it has been very clear to me from when I first installed it that I was not going to keep it, and it has been subsequently deleted.

Besides, it's proprietary, as is teamspeak and gizmo.

Ekiga looks promising, except its dependencies seem to conflict; I haven't looked at it thoroughly, though, but I might club it into compiling.

So, will Ekiga let me talk with my friend if he uses skype? Is that how it works? To be brutally honest, I haven't got a clue about how SIP/VoIP/*/Skype/ works and how they overlap. I understand that VoIP is a phenomenon, SIP is a protocol, Skype and * are programs that deals with VoIP, and Skype connects to some kind of network (at the application layer). What I don't understand is if any free (as in freedom) software can be used to connect to the skype network. Does skype use the SIP protocol? Can skype talk to non-skype networks which use SIP? Would it just be a matter of changing a hard-coded URL?

So, based on the assumption that I can get bashed ekiga into compiling, what software can my friend use to get to talk to me? Can he remain using skype?

Anyways, thanks to everyone who takes a stab at this--every contribution brings me closer to enlightenment on the subject.