Ubuntu
ekiga package

magicjack drivers or ekiga?

Asked by James Kevin Jones

Which is a better way to make/receive phone calls. The makers of MagicJack have not come out with linux drivers yet and I really like ubuntu and want to start using it more. I've found ekiga but haven't gotten it to work as of yet. Anyone out there dealing or dealt with trying to use it with linux?

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Xavier Bassery (xaba) said : 		#1

I see possibly two questions here:

Q1: What would be the best SIP softphones available on Ubuntu today.
Q2: How to use the paying service of MagicJack from Ubuntu given that they do not provide a linux driver yet for their "Phone to PC" usb dongle (already announced some time ago, so many doubt it will ever happen)

A1: this is hard to tell given the number of choices:
 - Ekiga used to be the recommended choice in Ubuntu
 - Empathy the new default choice in Ubuntu
I would name only a few other open-source alternatives found on wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software] :
 - SIP Communicator (Java) [http://www.sip-communicator.org], not very well known but already a long list of features and development seems active
 - QuteCom (previously called WengoPhone), a Qt application
 - Twinkle (another Qt application)
 - Linphone

A2: there are reports of success running the windows only application of MagicJack inside a virtual machine (e.g. VirtualBox).
Other option you might be interested in is to extract the hidden SIP credentials and use them to setup a SIP account in the softphone of your choice. Looking in google for ways to achieve this, it appears that there was a procedure that no longer works due to updates made by the manufacturer to prevent the operation. The old procedure consisted in using windows tools from magicjackhacks.net.
Fortunately, there seems to be a new way of getting the credentials anyway: http://www.digitaloffensive.com/2010/06/mjsip-automating-the-magic-jack-sip-retrieval/
For a description of what to do with the credentials the following link on the same site might be useful: http://www.digitaloffensive.com/2010/03/hacking-the-magic-jack-in-2010-for-use-on-trixbox-or-any-other-sip-device/
It gives instructions about how to install the required MJProxy program on linux.
Apropos mjproxy, there is a post giving a basic init script for it: http://techkrunch.co.cc/index.php/2010/06/27/mjproxy-debian-startup-script/

The following 2 links are a variant similar to the previous ones which may suit you better because they do focus on the use of a softphone in Ubuntu instead of setting up a PBX (Trixbox or Asterix) :
http://www.bauer-power.net/2010/05/how-to-hack-your-magicjack-to-make.html
http://www.bauer-power.net/2010/05/how-to-hack-your-magicjack-to-make_27.html

Another useful source of information is the unofficial forum http://www.magicjacksupport.com/.

Hope this will help you.

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