Re: [Ekiga-list] Ekiga test today

[Eugen Dedu <Eugen Dedu pu-pm univ-fcomte fr>]

On 23/02/13 15:56, Bret Busby wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2013, Eugen Dedu wrote:
>
> Greg and I today (23 February) had multiple unsuccessful attempts to try
> to connect using Ekiga.
>
> All kinds of things were going wrong, and, for all of the call attempts,
> whilst (mostly) calls were showing as being connected, we could not
> either hear or see each other, and, for my part, in the video window,
> all I would see, would be a still image of me.
>
> The only thing that we could get working, was the Chat window, but, that
> often showed me as offline or unavailable, when I was online and available.
>
> Greg, from what I understand, started collecting images and making a
> record of what was occurring.
>
> However, we are both running Ekiga 3.2.x for Linux.
> The latest available version, is apparently, 4.0.1.
>
> Thw web page at
> http://packages.debian.org/search?suite=all&searchon=names&keywords=ekiga (showing
> results for searchin for Ekiga packages for all versions of Debian, shows
>
> "
> Exact hits
> Package ekiga
> squeeze (stable) (gnome): H.323 and SIP compatible VoIP client
> 3.2.7-2: amd64 armel i386 ia64 mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc
> wheezy (testing) (gnome): H.323 and SIP compatible VoIP client
> 3.2.7-5+b1: amd64 armel armhf i386 ia64 kfreebsd-amd64 kfreebsd-i386
> mips mipsel powerpc s390 s390x sparc
> sid (unstable) (gnome): H.323 and SIP compatible VoIP client
> 3.2.7-5+b1: alpha amd64 armel armhf i386 ia64 kfreebsd-amd64
> kfreebsd-i386 mips mipsel powerpc s390 s390x sparc
> 3.2.7-5 [debports]: sh4 sparc64
> 3.2.7-2+b1: hppa
> 2.0.11-2 [debports]: m68k
> experimental (rc-buggy) (gnome): H.323 and SIP compatible VoIP client
> 4.0.0-1: amd64 armel armhf i386 ia64 kfreebsd-amd64 kfreebsd-i386 mips
> mipsel powerpc s390 s390x sparc
> "
>
> At http://ekiga.org/ is
>
> "
> Ekiga 4.0.1 [STABLE] available
> Submitted by Yannick Defais on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 01:01
> Hello everyone,
> This is the first update of the 4.0.0 stable release. It deals
> exclusively with bug fixing.
> The most important change is fixing ALL known crashes and freezes,
> especially the long-standing freeze on quit on Windows. Add to this
> making H.323 with gatekeeper functional again, two registration fixes,
> and numerous other fixes here and there. There is also a security fix.
> We encourage everyone to upgrade to this latest greatest version of ekiga.
> The next release will be 4.0.2 or 4.2.0, targetted mainly at replacing
> obsolete technologies and fixing remaining registration and
> communication issues. After 4.2.0, we will switch to using v12 of
> ptlib/opal underlying libraries and will be able to provide the
> much-awaited communication encryption and IPv6 support.
> "
>
> At http://wiki.ekiga.org/index.php/Installing_Ekiga_on_Linux is
> information showing that the latest version available for most Linux
> stable versions, is 3.2.7, and, for the latest Ubuntu LTS version
> (10.04) is 3.2.6.

That page has some obsolete information.  It is not easy to catch up 
with all distributions.  Maybe it is better to simply use 
http://pkgs.org/download/ekiga.

> The problems that Greg and I have been encountering, have probably been
> mostly resolved by the 4.0.0.1 version.

I am pretty sure that your problems are fixed with 4.0.0 or better 4.0.1.

> On the web page at http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/ekiga which
> relates to the version of Ekiga that is available for Debian stable
> (Debian Linux v6.0.x, that I am running, is shown
>
> "
> Package: ekiga (3.2.7-2)
> "
>
> and
>
> "
> Maintainers:
> Kilian Krause (QA Page)
> Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo (QA Page)
> Eugen Dedu (QA Page)
> Debian GNOME Maintainers (QA Page, Mail Archive)
> Josselin Mouette (QA Page)
> "
>
> who I assume (but I am not certain of my understanding of this) are the
> maintainers of the specific version of the package, that is available
> for the particular version of Debian Linux.
>
> So, my question is this; could the package maintainers for the version
> of Ekiga that is applicable to Debian stable (Debian Linux v6.0.x),
> please create and make available a Debian package (the applicable .deb
> file) of the latest stable version of Ekiga, for installation and
> updating of current installations of the Ekiga 3.2.x package, on the
> i386 and amd64 architectures? I name those two architectures, as I
> believe that they are by far the most common architectures, at present.

Debian stable itself will not accept a new ekiga package.  On the other 
hand, we (ekiga developers) could indeed create packages for debian 
stable and make them available on our website.  However, this is not how 
software distribution works, because this would mean that developers of 
a package must bother with all linux distributions, and we simply do not 
have time and machines to do this.  Our focus is on the program itself, 
not its packaging for debian, ubuntu, fedora, arch, gentoo, slackware 
etc. etc. and for architecture x, y, z...

> As far as I am aware, Debian pacxkages (the .deb files) can still be
> installed on Ubuntu (but, I cannot say that for certain, as it is a
> while since I have used Ubuntu), and, if that is correct, that should
> take care of both the Debian and Ubuntu distributions, for people who
> use the stable versions of each.
>
> The thing is that the version of Ekiga that Greg and I have installed;
> 3.2.x, is superseded, and, the problems that we are encountering, are
> probably fixed, in the latest stable version of Ekiga, and, for us to
> continue to try to run the superseded software, and, report on problems
> that we encounter with the superseded soiftware, is probably redundant.
>
> I do not know how much work is involved, in creating an installable
> Debian package that resolves dependencies and conflicts, or, equally,
> how complicated it is, but, I believe that the package maintainers would
> better know that, than me, and, would be more able to do that, than I
> would be able to instal software from source or from binaries.

I create snapshots (current ekiga code) for debian unstable.  I cannot 
do for debian stable for two architectures and so on.

--
Eugen