Voice Support for the Linux Client

I'm waiting for native binaries. If id Software and Epic Megagames can do it (Doom/Quake for id, Unreal Tornament for Epic), Blizzard can do it too. Meanwhile, I'll be happy with SL.

Thank you Drake for supporting Linux voice with your land policy! I hope you have a sign or something to the effect of "No voice until Linux is fully supported."

Palepu Babenco, I'm with you on being beyond dual-booting. My most recent version of Windows is Win98 first edition. I still have it on one computer, and I even booted it the other day just to see if it still works. I frankly am amazed that it was still able to detect all the hardware changes and adjust to them, after having been idle for about a year since the last boot. On my SL computer I have only Linux, having wiped out the WinXP partition that was on it when I got it. I'd have kept it, but WinXP does hardware detection, activation, and phones home to Micro$oft. Not to mention it doesn't work as well as Linux!

Still waiting for the first voice-enabled Linux viewer. Thank you for your work on this, Tofu!

Tofu - anyupdates on this yet?

Yeh, status report Tofu

I'd appreciate an update too, as Zee Linden is hosting a town hall on the subject of VAT using voice, which I can't participate in. See my other thread on the subject, and vote for the issue if you feel the same way

We're working with the voice vendor to improve the Linux voice support and good progress is being made, but it's not yet at a point where it'd cause more happiness than frustration when used on the main grid. I'll be sure to announce when it's ready to go.

Thanks for keeping all us Linux users in the loop regarding the progress on the voice enabled Linux SL client Tofu - it's much appreciated

It certainly would be a nice Christmas present if its ready for the festivities!

Keep up the stellar work

Regards

Norf.

/me slaps Norf with a 'Don't yer know bad dudes don't get stuff from Santa !' - look ..

I've had limited success running voice on a separate (SL challenged) Windows PC following the instructions posted at https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2041
I'm posting a few additional experimental results here as this JIRA has been closed.

The incorporation of the patch featured in this JIRA in the latest release candidate 1.18.4 enables the URL of the PC to be entered into the settings without changing the source code. Just add:
<VoiceHost value="ip.of.the.pc"/>
to your .secondlife/user_settings/settings_releasecandidate.xml

Start SL on the LINUX computer and start voice in preferences. You should get time-outs.. start the SLVoice.exe app on the Windows PC..
slvoice -p tcp -i ip.of.the.pc:44124
it sometimes crashes so check if it is running in task manager. I don't understand why the ip address of the PC has to be given there but maybe it just needs to match with the value of VoiceHost.

With the microphone plugged into the PC I get impressive green bursts of voice and can see the effect of others talking.. and I can be heard!!

I can't yet hear other people talking but there is a tantalising comment on the JIRA that voices could be heard running SLVoice under wine 'but only when SL itself is minimized' and nobody seems to have found a use for the SLVoiceAgent yet.. oh well.

AMB

**STOP PRESS - working 100% both directions**

okay well I failed to realise that I *was* actually picking up voices on the PC audio. They are spatially correct.

So what *does* SLVoiceAgent do?

When I use that setting in latest RC I get lots of

WARNING: ll_apr_warn_status: APR: Connection refused

in my debug, running packet sniffer on this machine and the other i can see it doesn't make a single attempt to contact the other machine, unless i ping then those show up.

Does this work for anyone else?

Amber Habsburg - while I'm having difficulty trying to install the libELFIO module, do you have the patched version of the linux client available for download?

@Ilobmirt I dont need to compile secondlife to get this to work. The patch has been included in the latest version of the release candidate and means you can use the settings parameter VoiceHost to tell the client where to connect.

As I mentioned it also seems necessary to tell slvoice to use the VoiceHost IP host number via the -i flag, even though it is of course running on VoiceHost.

@EquiBrad I see that message rather than a time-out when I don't have the slvoice parameters correct, or when running slvoice in wine which seems to be non-functioning, but also there is the gotcha about pointing slvoice to itself!

There are lots of msgs in the logs that helped me to get this working including that the linux client needs to see that there are all of the voice related .DLL's (may as well copy them over from the windows download) as well as a file named SLVoice in the main directory.

Hope that helps,
Amb

Okay, I've got the client starting and running the voice under crossover. I have verified that it is running (using KDE's task manager). I get all the indications in the client that voice is there, including my name in the popup box and a little white dot above my avatar.

The damn thing still doesn't work! No one else shows up in that popup. I can't hear anyone else. No one can hear me.

Is there something else going on I'm not aware of?

Adamas

How did you get that running in CrossOver? I can't get Second Life running in Wine, I keep getting this error in console.

INFO: idle_startup: Initializing embedded web browser...
INFO: LLAudioEngine_FMOD::init() initializing FMOD
WARNING: Error initializing FMOD: Error initializing output device.
WARNING: idle_startup: Unable to initialize audio engine
INFO: LLStartUp::setStartupState: Startup state changing from 0 to 1
INFO: idle_startup: Initializing Window
INFO: login_show: Initializing Login Screen
======
err:ole:CoGetClassObject class {4955dd33-b159-11d0-8fcf-00aa006bcc59} not registered
err:ole:CoGetClassObject no class object {4955dd33-b159-11d0-8fcf-00aa006bcc59} could be created for context 0x1
INFO: remove_marker_file()
======
[email]christopher@christopher-laptop:~/.wine[/email]/drive_c/Program Files/SecondLife$

I'm not using the windows SL client; I'm using the Linux SL client. The windows client won't run under either wine or Crossover. As far as I can tell, the problem is no DirectX.

I'm running SLVoice.exe with Crossover. It's supposed to work. The Linux client recognizes it and all indications are that it is running and fully operational, but I get no connectivity with other voice users.

My apologies if it looks like I said I was using the windows client. I'm only using the SLVoice.exe executable which is included in with the windows installation.

Several people have stated, here and elsewhere, that they got the windows voice program to work with the Linux client (in several different ways). I want to know what I'm doing wrong; it only works partway, just enough to frustrate me.

Adamas

@Adamas if it's any consolation I get the same result with winehq with one of my soundcards and a crash with another. If slvoice doesn't crash the white dot appears over my avatar but nobody else's and apparently I do not appear to be voice enabled.

Yes, I'm having difficulties working this out in wine like EquiBrad Voom. I've gone a bit further to include debugging output in this message, it could be how Wine handles ALSA.

Apparently, this forum doesn't accept long messages, quotes, or attachments. I'll link you to the continuation of this message from my website instead. :\

http://tenkwear.110mb.com/sldebugg.txt

@Ilobmirt The message in your error log:
2007-10-28T01:57:58Z INFO: LLVoiceClient:tateMachine: /home/ilobmirt/Documents/SecondLife_i686_1_18_4_1_RELEASECANDIDATE/SLVoicenot found.
means the linux client couldn't find the SLVoice executable. Since you are going to start this yourself, all you need to do is put a file named SLVoice in the clients base directory, e.g.:
cd SecondLife_i686_1_18_4_1_RELEASECANDIDATE
echo > SLVoice.exe

If you check out the JIRA again it provides a wrapper conveniently called SLVoice to start it automatically

You'll need to do this for a whole raft of DLLs thats why I suggest you just:
cp /home/ilobmirt/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/SecondLife/*.dll .

Amb

Amber -Whadda you know. I'm now voice enabled under linux, albiet crappy. (Linden Labs fault hopefully) Talk To You Later sometime

Say, since this thread was originally about the status of the official Secondlife client and were talking about hacking the release candidate to use the windows vivox blob, Could the administrators and moderators please take post #35 onward and make that a new topic. Lets stop hogging the spotlight

@Ilobmirt I don't see a difference between running a Windows blob under wine or running a Linux blob that we equally know nothing about, as long as the interface works! Can we deduce from your incredulity that you succeeded with SLVoice running under wine?

Yes. Please tell us how to do it. The main thing we may be missing is detail. Like: is there a firewall setting we need to be aware of; are there secret command line parameters of the executible, or is there just a bug that prevents us from connecting properly?

I think Tofu might have some of those answers. By the way, Tofu, if you want someone to test what you actually have (Linux blob), I'm available!

Adamas

I'll sign up for that too Tofu

I would be willing to test.

OS - Linux Ubuntu 7.10