Gtalk with 'talk' is what i was missing on gentoo. Now i have got it work with Empathy 2.24.1. Only Linux to windows tested, Linux to Linux not working. It is possible that there is problem with the other Linux machine i am testing with. Please inform if anyone gets it to work.

The packages needed with USE flags are:

  • empathy
  • telepathy-stream-engine USE="alsa gnome v4l v4l2 xv -debug -esd -oss -pulseaudio"
  • telepathy-gabble
  • telepathy-mission-control
  • farsight USE="jingle msn yahoo -gsm -jpeg2k"
  • gst-plugins-farsight USE="jingle -doc -test"

Use Empathy 2.24 or higher, msn and yahoo USE flags are not necessary for gtalk. I used them for future use.Also v4l2 may not be required. Webcam not tested yet.

Ubuntu and Debian users may install the packages from repository. Have a look at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=819046 . Also for debugging Empathy these instructions are very useful http://live.gnome.org/Empathy/Debugging . This is how I found what was missing.

I will repeat the debugging instructions for gentoo (simple path differences)

Kill all telepathy relate processes. Quitting empathy should be enough but to make sure you may want to kill them: 

$ killall empathy mission-control telepathy-gabble telepathy-stream-engine

Start programs in different consoles: 

   $ GABBLE_PERSIST=1 GABBLE_DEBUG=all /usr/libexec/telepathy-gabble
   $ STREAM_ENGINE_PERSIST=1 STREAM_ENGINE_DEBUG=all /usr/libexec/telepathy-stream-engine
   $ /usr/lib/telepathy/mission-control
   $ EMPATHY_DEBUG=all empathy

Enjoy talking !!!