You mean you want to use contacts instead of entering the number? If so, I’m not sure if any other SIP client will access the contacts. It’s possible one will, I just don’t know. It looks like there are some related issues being tracked in the upstream Gnome Calls repository: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/calls/-/issues/356 and https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/calls/-/issues/272
So, support for that will likely come to the calls app at some point. It just isn’t there yet.
Linphone has access to phone contacts on Android, but I don’t know if Linphone works on the L5.
Yeah, I just tried Linphone. I was able to work around the display issues and make a call. The call went through but no sound in either direction. I can’t manage to get microphone to work with any calling app other than gnome-calls. I even tried not auto-starting gnome-calls to see if was monopolizing the microphone source or something, but it didn’t make a difference.
Did you try different protocols in the Linphone settings. I’m not sure if that has any effect, but I recall reading something about it in their help section on the website.
Hi @francepat
you can enable VoLTE - it’s not end user friendly and there are quirks (like no ring tone) but since you mention 20+ years of linux experience you can give it a try and it’s reversible. Since it’s provider dependent it might not work for AT&T yet (see coments in the bug)
Regarding SIP: that is being worked on in calls and has even been tried successfully with jmp.chat. I filed https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/calls/-/issues/387 so we can get better documentation for the common cases. SIP in calls isn’t as production ready as 2G/3G voice calls but depending on your requirements it could well be worth a try.
Thanks, I previously set VoLTE on (it didn’t work) and my cellphone provider is telling me that my phone does not support my phone and I will have to use a different phone (actually modem of course) by the end of Feb 2022. T-Mobile apparently is supported, but when I tried in the past the signal was not strong enough at my home (or my previous workplace). Without WiFi calling as an alternative, I would not have a way to make or receive calls except with XMPP or SIP calling. I have SIP calling working with jmp.chat using gnome-calls. I have not gotten any other calling app to work (I have tried many).
Thanks for the suggestions though.
Linphone
jami also
purism@pureos:~$ flatpak install flathub net.jami.Jami
I even managed to receive the video of my correspondent with one of the 2 applications but I don’t know which one.
Thanks. I re-flashed the phone yesterday and tried Linphone again. After choosing the right input audio source setting it did work. Call was pretty clear. I also tried twinkle, which worked but I heard static on the audio. The Linphone interface is a bit difficult to use on the phone since it isn’t adaptive (constantly switch back and forth between portrait and landscape mode), but the quality is good.
Of course the downside is that Linphone has its own contacts database. So I wonder how feasible it would be to read the contacts from the phone contacts DB and sync them with the Linphone version. The Linphone DBs are apparently just SQL; I am not sure about the phone contacts database.
Thanks. Might be an interesting project to create the linphone contacts database from the phone contacts database.
If you’re on PureOS Byzantium, you can also give the relatively new GNOME Calls VoIP feature a try. It works okay with my SIP account at sipgate.de.
Thanks. Already tried that successfully. Problem is it doesn’t use Contacts, while Linphone etc. have their own contact list at least. With Gnome Calls currently you have to enter the phone number manually for VOIP calls. That will be fixed eventually I guess, but who knows when.
Yet, it is on our TO-DO list.
You can try using blabber.im. I have received phone calls with it (the sound quality was pretty good) and can use for texting too. I have never tried to call anyone with it, however, I would assume that it should work too.
It’s only available now for mobile devices.
So I put my librem 5 away in a drawer for a while, because I bought a Pixel and installed CalyxOS as my daily driver. I recently pulled out my librem 5 to test again VOIP calling, as I gave up on the VoLTE on librem 5 a while ago. Perhaps it works now, I don’t know.
So I have a jmp.chat account and again tried calls with XMPP with multiple clients. I still have the same problem with the other end of the calling hearing my voice. pavucontrol shows the microphone is working. fuser shows PulseAudio has the microphone, as expected. I tried various things that had been suggested in the forums like turning off one of the microphones etc. but nothing solved the problem. I also tried a headset with microphone with the same result. Has anyone else gotten XMPP calling working completely?
Anyway, fortunately jmp.chat supports SIP as well so I used the gnome-calls app to make calls. The Contacts issue is now fixed, as now I can make calls using Contacts. However, often the call was ended immediately. I finally realized that if the contact entry was just the 10 digit (US) phone number but didn’t start with +1 the call immediately failed and I saw a message saying Contact not found. So I will be putting + and the country dialing code (1 for US) in all my contact entries. I chatted with jmp.chat support and suggested maybe they should be prefixing the +1 if a 10 digit number is received (without the +1 prefix) but they said SIP is handled by their carrier.
The other issue I ran into is sometimes when I called I got an automated message saying the call was restricted. I noticed that the cell bars symbol on the phone had a lock symbol on it. If I turned off cellular and used just WiFi to make the calls, the calls worked. Somehow, the APN settings were missing for my SIM card (Keepgo) for cellular. By setting the APN correctly, the lock symbol went away and I calls worked (including of course the other end hearing my voice) using cellular data.
So since I had the issue with the cell service with the lock symbol despite having WiFi on, this implies to me that the Calls app is using the cellular transport instead of WiFi for the SIP calls. I would prefer of course to use WiFi instead of cellular for SIP calls when both are on. I don’t see anyway to configure that. Anybody have an ideas as to whether setting a priority order or something like that is possible with GNOME calls when using SIP?
Thanks.
I use JMP.chat and Gajim. Works pretty well. I call people they call me. I updated to the recommended PAVUControl settings. I haven’t had as many complaints about the echo.
It is not perfect. Sometimes calls are dropped. Sometimes the modem shuts down. It is still buggy but I accept that. It seems like a fair number of things on the Librem 5 are just a tad buggy. Again, I accept this. Purism and the developers seem to be making consistent changes and I am very pleased with the updates.
It isn’t perfect but it does the job for me. I can call people on wifi and text them from a number that costs me about $1.50 a month. I’ll take it.
What recommended pavucontrol settings are you referring to?
Thanks.
OK, thanks, I tried that but it didn’t work for me. Since it indicated that pulseaudio configuration change would prevent the volume from being too low, I thought that might fix the problem. but it didn’t. Plus I don’t seem to have problem using GNOME-Calls with SIP.
Thanks anyway.
I use jmp.chat with Dino via the adaptable version. Incoming calls works perfectly, but there is a small bug that prevents outgoing calls, but the Dino team has a possible solution and it should be getting patched shortly.
