All this talk about Discord replacements plus my own experience attempting to host a Synapse has got me wondering why it seems so hard to implement voice chat.

Stupid idea: back in 2022 I got an Asterisk server working on a raspberry pi over AREDN without too much trouble. What’s stopping people from just using a PBX like that for voice chat?

  • Lumisal@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    3 months ago

    This has big XKCD Energy. It almost feels like an exact recreation of the comic but with tech:

    • early_riser@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      4·
      3 months ago

      I meant the OP more as a lament about it being hard rather than a quip about it being easy.

      Though upon reflection it’s not the voice chat that’s a problem, it’s the fact that Discord is a lot of things, a chatroom, a VOIP service, and so on, and recreating all those things on top bolting on federation (which I don’t see as a desirable feature in this case) is what makes it so hard.

  • early_riser@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    Update: I got Mumble working without a lot of grief. Their mobile client isn’t great though. I might try Stoat.

    Federation just complicates things, as it’s just for a myself and a few friends.

    • Rednax@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      I remember using mumble in a time when smartphones weren’t even a thing yet. Love to see the open source tool outlive everything else!

    • Holytimes@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Look at fluxer it’s stoat developed by someone who isn’t retarded. Has done more in a fraction of the time and actually has functional features

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    It’s not! Use SonoBus; it’s dead simple, and superior to Discord. It’s far lower latency, with customizable filters, peer-to-peer; and totally free.

    Now if you want emojis and video and rambling channels and stuff, you will have to go elsewhere.

  • falynns@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    I have a Jitsi server hosted through a docker container that was pretty easy, and ties into Rocket Chat. Jitsi does voice and video, Rocket Chat does chat.

  • Ledivin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    It’s not, but the people who are asking are often not tech-savvy, and any amount of self-hosting will be hard for them

  • aliceblossom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    Since no one has mentioned it yet -

    If you haven’t tried setting Synapse up with the ansible playbook you should. It’s almost push-button and has 1:1 voice calls by default. Setting up group voice from there is a bit challenging, but the playbook has a section for it as well if you’re willing to try.

    Edit: cookbook - > playbook

    • early_riser@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      I haven’t messed with Ansible in a bit. Do you mean playbook? Or is cookbook some other concept I haven’t learned about yet?