Usage
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Chapter 2. Usage

To use KTalkd, you need a talk client. The text-based talk is available on most UNIX® systems. Try talk your_username to see what happens when you receive a talk request.

You can also try the answering machine the same way: initiate a talk to yourself, ignore the announcement twice, and you'll see the answering machine.

There is a talk client with a graphical interface for KDE, KTalk. It's not yet shipped with KDE packages, but you can find it on ftp://ftp.kde.org. It should be in ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/latest/apps/network

The announcement dialog box is trivial: respond or ignore.

The configuration dialog should be rather straight forward, except for setting up a forward to another user (or even to another host).

Choosing a Forwarding Method

None is perfect, they all have pros (+) and cons (-).

FWA - Forward announcement only.

Direct connection. Not recommended.

  • (+) You know who the caller is, but

  • (-) Caller will have to respond to an announcement from you. Annoying.

  • (-) Don't use if you have an answering machine on your “away” location. (The answering machine can't popup an announcement, it would be confusing!)

FWR - Forward all requests, changing info when necessary

Direct connection.

  • (+) Caller won't know that you're away, but

  • (-) You won't really know who the caller is - only his username, (so you might see talk from Wintalk@my_host)

FWT - Forward all requests and take the talk.

No direct connection.

  • (+) Same as above, but also works if you and caller can't be in direct contact one with the other (e.g. firewall).

  • (+) You'll be told who's really talking to you when you accept the talk

  • (-) But as in FWR, you won't know his machine name in the announcement

In short, use FWT it you want to use it behind a firewall (and if KTalkd can access both networks), and FWR otherwise.

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