Linphone Desktop

Linphone is an open source softphone for voice and video over IP calling and instant messaging.

It is fully SIP-based, for all calling, presence and IM features.

General description is available from Linphone web site

License

Copyright © Belledonne Communications

Linphone is dual licensed, and is available either :

• under a GNU/GPLv3 license, for free (open source). Please make sure that you understand and agree with the terms of this license before using it (see LICENSE file for details).

• under a proprietary license, for a fee, to be used in closed source applications. Contact Belledonne Communications for any question about costs and services.

Documentation

• Supported features and RFCs

• Linphone public wiki

Parameters

--help : display available parameters.

--verbose : print logs into stdout/stderr.

--qt-logs-only : print only logs from the application. It strips SDK logs from the output.

Getting started

Here are the general instructions to build Linphone for desktop. The specific instructions for each build platform is described just below. You will need the tools :

• cmake >= 3.22 : download it in https://cmake.org/download/
• python : https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-381/
• pip : it is already embedded inside Python, so there should be nothing to do about it
• yasm : https://yasm.tortall.net/Download.html
• nasm : https://www.nasm.us/pub/nasm/releasebuilds/
• doxygen (required for the Cxx Wrapper)
• Perl
• pystache : use 'pip install pystache --user'
• six : use 'pip install six --user'
• git

For Desktop : you will need Qt5 (5.15 or newer). C++11 support is required!

Set your environment

1. It's necessary to install the pip command and to execute:

    pip install pystache six
   

2. You have to set the environment variable Qt5_DIR to point to the path containing the cmake folders of Qt5, and the PATH to the Qt5 bin. Example:

    Qt5_DIR="~/Qt/5.15.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt5"
    PATH="~/Qt/5.15.2/gcc_64/bin/:$PATH"
   

Note: If you have the third party tool qtchooser installed : eval "$(qtchooser -print-env)" export Qt5_DIR=${QTLIBDIR}/cmake/Qt5 export PATH=${QTTOOLDIR}:$PATH 3. For specific requirements, see platform instructions sections below.

Summary of Building steps

    `git clone https://gitlab.linphone.org/BC/public/linphone-desktop.git --recursive`
    `cd linphone-desktop`
    `mkdir build`
    `cd build`
    `cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_PARALLEL_LEVEL=10 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo`
    `cmake --build . --parallel 10 --config RelWithDebInfo`
    `cmake --install .`
    `./OUTPUT/bin/linphone --verbose` or `./OUTPUT/Linphone.app/Contents/MacOS/linphone --verbose`

Get sources

    git clone https://gitlab.linphone.org/BC/public/linphone-desktop.git --recursive        

	

Building : General Steps

The build is done by building the SDK and the application. Their targets are sdk and linphone-qt.

1. Create your build folder at the root of the project : mkdir build Go to this new folder and begin the build process : cd build

2. Prepare your options : cmake ... By default, it will try compile all needed dependencies. You can remove some by adding -DENABLE_<COMPONENT>=NO to the command. You can use cmake-gui .. if you want to have a better access to them. You can add -DCMAKE_BUILD_PARALLEL_LEVEL=<count> to do <count> parallel builds for speeding up the process. Also, you can add -DENABLE_BUILD_VERBOSE=ON to get more feedback while generating the project.

Note : For Makefile or Ninja, you have to add -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=<your_config> if you wish to build in a specific configuration (for example RelWithDebInfo).

3. Build and install the whole project : cmake --build . --target <target> --parallel <count> (replace <target> with the target name and <count> by the number of parallel builds).

Note : For XCode or Visual Studio, you have to add --config <your_config> if you wish to build in a specific configuration (for example RelWithDebInfo).

When all are over, the files will be in the OUTPUT folder in the build directory. When rebuilding, you have to use cmake --build . --target install (or cmake --install .) to put the application in the correct configuration.

Binaries inside other folders (like linphone-app and linphone-sdk) are not supposed to work.

4. When doing some modifications in the SDK, you can rebuild only the SDK with the target sdk and the same for the application with linphone-qt-only

5. In order to get packages, you can use cmake .. -DENABLE_APP_PACKAGING=YES. The files will be in OUTPUT/packages folder.

Update your project

1. Update your project with :

    git fetch
    git pull --rebase
   

2. Update sub-modules from your current branch

    git submodule update --init --recursive
   

Then simply re-build using cmake.

General Troubleshooting

• The latest version of Doxygen may not work with the SDK. If you some build issues and have a specific version of Doxygen that is not in your PATH, you can use -DLINPHONESDK_DOXYGEN_PROGRAM.

Eg on Mac : -DLINPHONESDK_DOXYGEN_PROGRAM=/Applications/Doxygen.app/Contents/Resources/doxygen

• If the build of the SDK crash with something like "cmd.exe failed" and no more info, it can be a dependency that is not available. You have to check if all are in your PATH. Usually, if it is about VPX or Decaf, this could come from your Perl installation.

• If the application doesn't start and create an empty file with a random name, it could be come from a bad configuration between your application and others sub-modules. Check your configurations and force them with -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=<your_config> or --config <your_config>.

• On Mac, the application can crash at the start from QOpenGLContext. A workaround is to deactivate the mipmap mode on images by adding into your configuration file (linphonerc): mipmap_enabled=0 in [ui] section.

Specific instructions for the Mac Os X platform

To install the required dependencies on Mac OS X, you can use Homebrew. Before you install packages with Brew, you may have to change directories permissions (if you can't change permissions with sudo on a MacOS >= High Sierra, get a look at this StackOverflow answer).

1. Install XCode from the Apple store. Run it at least once to allow it to install its tools. You may need to run :

    xcode-select --install
   

2. Install Homebrew by following the instructions here https://brew.sh/

3. Install dependencies:

    brew install cmake pkg-config git doxygen nasm yasm
   

4. First ensure you have pip

5. Then, you can install a pip package with the following command:

    python -m pip install [package]
   

For instance, enter the following command:

    python -m pip install pystache six graphviz
    

6. Download Qt, install a Qt5 version and set Qt5_DIR and PATH variables.

7. The default architecture is x86_64 because Qt 5.15.2 is not available for arm64. LINPHONEAPP_MACOS_ARCHS can be used to change it.

   -DLINPHONEAPP_MACOS_ARCHS=arm64

8. Build as usual (General Steps).

9. If you get an error about modules that are not found for Python, it may be because cmake try to use another version from your PATH. It can be the case if you installed Python from brew. Install Python modules by using absolute path. For example:

    /opt/homebrew/python3 -m pip install pystache six graphviz
   

Specific instructions for the Windows platform

1. Install main tools:

• MinGW/MSYS2 : download
  • Follow instructions on their "Getting Started" page.
  • Install toolchains and prepare python:
    • pacman -Sy --needed base-devel mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain
    • pacman -S python3-pip in MSYS2 MSYS console
    • python3 -m pip install pystache six in cmd
    • In this order, add C:\msys64\mingw64\bin, C:\msys64\ and C:\msys64\usr\bin in your PATH environement variable from Windows advanced settings. Binaries from the msys folder (not from mingw32/64) doesn't fully support Windows Path and thus, they are to be avoided.

When building the SDK, it will install automatically from MSYS2 : toolchain, python, doxygen, perl, yasm, gawk, bzip2, nasm, sed, patch, pkg-config, gettext, glib2, intltool and graphviz (if needed)

• git : use MSYS2 : pacman -S git or download

• Visual Studio must also be properly configured with addons. Under "Tools"->"Obtain tools and features", make sure that the following components are installed:

  • Tasks: Select Windows Universal Platform development, Desktop C++ Development, .NET Development

2. Ensure that you have downloaded the Qt msvc2019 version (64-bit). Note that Qt msvc2019 can be use with earlier version of Visual Studio.

3. Or open a Command line with Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt for VS 2019 and call qtenv2.bat that is in your qt binaries eg: C:\Qt\<version>\msvc2019\bin\qtenv2.bat

4. Build as usual with adding -A x64 to cmake .. (General Steps) :

• cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_PARALLEL_LEVEL=10 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -A x64 The default build is very long. It is prefered to use the Ninja generator -G "Ninja"
• cmake --build . --target ALL_BUILD --parallel 10 --config RelWithDebInfo

5. The project folder will be in the build directory and binaries should be in the OUTPUT folder.

Installing dependencies

There are docker files configurations where dependencies can be retrieved.

Also, more configurations are available in the docker-files folder of linphone-sdk submodule.

Options

Options	Description	Default value
ENABLE_APP_LICENSE	Enable the license in packages.	YES
ENABLE_APP_PACKAGING	Enable packaging. Package will be deployed in OUTPUT/packages	NO
ENABLE_APP_PDF_VIEWER	Enable PDF viewer. Need Qt PDF module.	YES
ENABLE_APP_WEBVIEW	Enable webview for accounts. The Webview engine must be deployed, it takes a large size.	NO
ENABLE_APP_PACKAGE_ROOTCA	Embed the rootca file (concatenation of all root certificates published by mozilla) into the package	YES
ENABLE_BUILD_APP_PLUGINS	Enable the build of plugins	YES
ENABLE_BUILD_EXAMPLES	Enable the build of examples	NO
ENABLE_BUILD_VERBOSE	Enable the build generation to be more verbose	NO
ENABLE_DAEMON	Enable the linphone daemon interface.	NO
ENABLE_PQCRYPTO	Enable post quantum ZRTP.	NO
ENABLE_SCREENSHARING	Enable screen sharing.	YES
ENABLE_STRICT	Build with strict compilator flags e.g. -Wall -Werror	NO
ENABLE_TESTS	Build with testing binaries of SDK	NO
ENABLE_TESTS_COMPONENTS	Build libbctoolbox-tester	NO
ENABLE_TOOLS	Enable tools of SDK	NO
ENABLE_UNIT_TESTS	Enable unit test of SDK.	NO
ENABLE_UPDATE_CHECK	Enable update check.	YES
LINPHONE_SDK_MAKE_RELEASE_FILE_URL	Make a RELEASE file that work along check_version and use this URL	""

Contributing

Code

In order to submit a patch for inclusion in Linphone's source code:

1. First make sure that your patch applies to the latest Git sources before submitting : patches made to old versions can't and won't be merged.

2. Fill out and send the contributor agreement for your patch to be included in the Git tree by following links there. The goal of this agreement is to grant us the peaceful exercise of our rights to the Linphone source code, without losing your rights over your contribution.

3. Then go to the github repository and make a Pull Requests based on your code.

Please note that we don't offer free support and these contributions will be addressed on our free-time.

Languages

Linphone is getting a full internationalization support.

We no longer use transifex for the translation process, instead we have deployed our own instance of [Weblate](https://weblate.linphone.org).


If you want you can contribute at: https://weblate.linphone.org/projects/linphone-desktop/

Feedback or bug reporting

Launch the application with --verbose parameter to get full logs and send it with your request. You can use the "Send logs" button in settings to upload log files and share it by email or with a post in the corresponding Github project :

• Desktop Application
• Linphone SDK

On some OS (like Fedora 22 and later), they disable Qt debug output by default. To get full output, you need to create ~/.config/QtProject/qtlogging.ini and add :

    [Rules]
    *.debug=true
    qt.*.debug=false