Voice chat under linux

I have been searching for a voice chat solution under Linux to contact my family while I'm abroad , cause i am doing almost all my work under Linux and i hate to boot xp for only chatting, here is my experience

Msn:
- ofcourse voice chat will not work under linux

Yahoo messenger:
- i couldn't make it work with wine

Google talk
- it is my favorite voice chat client as it have good audio quality but unfortunately didn't work at all with wine or even crossover
- I couldn't setup Landell, and i didn't hear any success stories about installing it
- i could install Empathy successfully and it worked with me , voice chat worked too , tested the voice quality once, it was inferior to the original software, but it was usable

Skype
i had installed skype before on ubuntu dapper and ubuntu edgy but it didn't work properly , i could only make one call per session, and i had to restart the application for it to work again, there was a fix for that But i have installed skype 2.0.0.8 under ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy)


VOIP (SIP)
It worked from the beginning, used xten-xlite as a client on both sides, worked fine with the SIP gizmo service (sipphone), good audio quality, rare disconnections, minimal delay


Conclusion
if you are a Linux fan try to avoid properiatory solutions tailored mainly for windows, try to use a standard protocol like SIP you will find it well supported by not only Linux community but also other platforms and hardware manufacturers.

Changing hostname in linux

to change the hostname:
Method 1:

from terminal run this command

$sudo echo "your_new_hostname" > /etc/hostname

Method 2"

System > Administration > Network > General (tab)

and change "Host name" value to whatever you want

p.s.
a good tip is to add your new hostname to /etc/hosts

$sudo echo "127.0.0.1 your_new_hostname" >> /etc/hosts

p.s. tested on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 LTS