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Me and a couple of friends have decided to play the game called OpenArena (and open source version of Quake III) together some day this week.

When we play games we like to be able speak to each other with using VoIP.

In the past we have used Skype for this but I have started to dislike proprietary software and want to replace it with software that is free (as in freedom) where I can.

I am using Trisquel gnu/linux as my operating system but my friends are using Microsoft Windows.

The VoIP client I need must be:

  • able to support multiple people at the same time in our conversation.
  • completely free (as in freedom).
  • completely free of charge.
  • able to run on gnu/Linux.
  • able to communicate with my friends who are using Microsoft Windows.

I also need to know how it should communicate with Windows.

Is the client completely cross-platform which allows them to use the same client as me? Does it use a standard protocol that enables it to communicate with a different client that works on Windows? and if so, what client should my friends use?

I would also like it to be:

  • lightweight (my laptop is a couple of years old and bought used).
  • easy to install and set up.
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3 Answers 3

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I think Linphone is what you may be after.

It's free and open source, under the GPL license. It's rather lightweight, allows for multiple connections, works on Linux, Windows, Android and iOS. It uses an SIP protocol, so you'll need an account of sorts. You can go to linphone.org to create one, or use any other SIP account.

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  • I second this. Good support, runs stable, clients for most major platforms. You can use it with their server/service (like you would Skype), or with any other SIP server (incl. self-hosted). As far as I've heard, excellent video quality (not tried that part, only using it for phone calls when abroad – or as "DECT replacement" when at home). I'm pretty pleased with it.
    – Izzy ♦
    Mar 3, 2015 at 14:05
  • It seems like linphone does not support a conversation of multiple people at the same time. Is this correct? Are there any workarounds for this?
    – wefwefa3
    Mar 5, 2015 at 18:42
  • @ryvnf: this is not correct. it should support conferencing: "Audio conferencing (merge calls into a conference)"
    – DJCrashdummy
    Oct 1, 2016 at 10:13
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While Linphone might be a good software, I have experienced some problems with it (don't remember exactly the nature - it was a couple of years ago, but, hopefully, it's more stable now). Anyway, my recommendation would be another open source, multi-platform VoIP software suite, called Jitsi.

It is powerful and modern VoIP software, satisfies all your requirements, is feature-rich and relatively lightweight. As Linphone and similar programs, Jitsi uses open SIP protocol but supports other protocols as well. Jitsi also supports multiparty video chat, secure protocol ZRTP, wide range of codecs and more.

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well... for replacing skype, sip (wether you use a service or run a server on your own) with it's huge amount of clients is the way to go, but for in-game-usage there are much better solutions as skype or sip!

THE opensource-way for in-game-communication is Mumble:

  • Low-latency
  • High audio quality (Opus and serveral others for backwards-compatibility)
  • encrypted communication (OCB-AES128)
  • Noise Suppression
  • Automatic Level Equalization

and the best on top... some features especially for gamers:

...take a look for supported games: https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Games#Supported_games

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