Skype for Linux was declared dead under Palmer's, resources reduced to a minimum and new versions and features blocked. Skype CEOs and CTOs at that time are equally responsible, made millions and disappeared. It's been an uphill battle since, you can found some linux developers on LinkedIn and ask them. A joke that goes around is that Skype could die soon this year unless it turns profitable. Anyway, from a business perspective MS doesn't understand or value Linux desktop, so nothing to be surprised here.
Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
201–210 of 483 posts
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#202>> but starting from February 22 the Linux client is unable to join calls
My colleague using Ubuntu managed to join a call I made to her with no issue. There must be more to it I guess.
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#203Skype has been getting worse and worse over the years. Personally I've switched to Telegram for chats, and I'll be looking for alternatives as far as voice calls are concerned.
I use tox[1] with my family and some friends. https://tox.chat/
Tox sucks for audio. At least when i tried it 3 months ago.
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#204Skype feels like it runs just as well on my brand new laptop as it used to do on my 9 year old machine.
As in not well at all and whenever any progress has been made with computing speed the Skype team have refactored their app to perform just as poorly on the new hardware.
Also why is the "Skype Home" part of the app just a facebook advert? I don't have an FB account so Skype tells me to get one every time I open it. Seemingly FB is more important than my contacts.
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#205I've been educating as many people (especially Management and Business people) as I can to switch over from Skype to any other alternative (like Hangouts). Because Skype is: * A memory hog * A bandwidth hog (its really inefficient about network usage, and uses a lot of bandwidth even when idle) * Has much lower call quality (a consequence of the above), just try having a call in Hangouts or Skype and notice that Hang…
> * Is now owned by Microsoft
This is not negative in itself. I don't like that it's part of a bigger company because of privacy and focus from intelligence agencies and hackers, but that's just me. I could imagine someone else thinking it's positive because it shows professionalism.
Why is this a negative point for you? And why would something like Hangouts be better, or what would you suggest if you wanted to eliminate big companies' products?
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#206I'm surprised people still even use Skype, I went really down hill around 5 or so years ago. It's slow, bulky, closed source and it has been disclosed by Edward Snowden and Wikileaks to have ties directly into the prism program with the NSA.
My thoughts exactly. There have been better alternatives out there for a few years now. Whenever a client or customer requests a Skype call these days, there are always a few raised eyebrows.
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#207The longer MS ignores Skype on linux, the happier I'll be. Unlike the Windows version, it's at least usable and a great deal more stable (in my experience, anyway)
Precisely. Like Pidgin using the MSN network, it didn't have any of the problems that Windows Live Messenger had (like shutting down when Microsoft wished it and forcing you over to Skype - the network itself kept running just fine for 2 years after that point).
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#208While I'm unsure about the inability to join calls, I can at least agree that the Linux client is terrible. I finally caved a few months ago, got an account, and started using it ("oh wow it handles 's/woops/fixed/', that's awesome")... until the client began freezing, chewing 100% CPU for as long as I patiently left it running, and not getting itself sorted out. Removing ~/.Skype (XDG, anybody?) and re-signing in wo…
> XDG: TL;DR = says stuff should be in ~/.config, ~/.cache, etc. XDGBDS is such an unstandard even xdg-utils doesn't care for it. And Skype predates XDGBDS (let alone whatever the current version of XDGBDS is this week). Also you're wrong, XDG doesn't say stuff should be in specific directories, it defines envvars specifying directories with various defaults, defaults which are at best only correct on Linux distros w…
> XDGBDS is such an unstandard even xdg-utils doesn't care for it.
:o, TIL
> And Skype predates XDGBDS (let alone whatever the current version of XDGBDS is this week).
Of course, but that's no real excuse for it not to get with the times.
> Also you're wrong, XDG doesn't say stuff should be in specific directories, it defines envvars specifying directories with various defaults,
you are of course right; I overly-condensed my TL;DR. Those are the default directories, yes, but it defines XDG_CONFIG_HOME (~/.config), XDG_CACHE_HOME (~/.cache), etc.
> defaults which are at best only correct on Linux distros which purport to follow XDG, which you can't test for because XDGBDS didn't see fit to define a way to say it.
Another TIL... and that's just crazy.
What about OS policy being that "all shell environments shall be supplied with stock configuration that defines the XDG environment envvars as a sign of compatibility and compliance"? Keep them at ~/.config et al., just define them - because if they're defined, that indicates the environment is very likely to be sanely configured (for (stereo)typical values of "sane").
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#209What I don’t understand is - Why is there not a serious competitor to Skype? If there was a cross-platform Skype clone that worked on OSX, Linux, Windows, iOS and Android that was stable and secure - the whole world would jump onto it. All it has to do is not be a bloated piece of crap like Skype. Instead, everything else out there is fragmented. We’re all waiting, get on it already!
Indeed. There are lots of apps that cover parts of its functionality, but not all. We keep trying to introduce new alternatives at work, but to date nothing has passed the test.
Calls, group calls, chat, group chat, video, screenshare. For one communications client those are the boxes it needs to tick. Any suggestions?
Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I recently saw how all my friends moved to Telegram, and this is nice. All my friends are on Whatsapp, and this is not nice... I'm going to try to convert them to Telegram., not easy.
I don't understand why people on HN are still recommending Telegram. It's not open, the crypto is highly questionable, and messages are not encrypted end-to-end by default (and not at all in groups). Use one of the apps that gets a full score in the EFF's Secure Messaging Scorecard [1], like Signal. [1] https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard
> still recommending Telegram
I'm not. I'm just saying that the majority of my friends are using it. For me it's better than skype and whatsapp. The GNU/Linux client works fine (although I'm not a big fan of its codebase: I had a look at it and guess what…)