Live data from Hacker News

Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

nickforall.nl

381–390 of 483 posts

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because software isn't moving in a way that you personally want doesn't mean it's wrong or that it was objectively "better" before. We don't have apps that work offline? Maybe look around more. FFS half of the web apps i use work fine offline. And claiming that there has been no innovation in the OS space for years is silly. There is plenty of innovation, it's just that people don't like change and will instantl…

Windows 10 is a pretty good OS but has serious issues with drivers (it tries to be clever and breaks stuff). And the startup is sooooo slow and the UI crashes twice before I ever get the chance to give it input. The Mail, Calendar and OneNote apps kept me hooked. But the lack of a decent terminal was killing me. Also, Skype didn't work properly half the time and the new "Video" and "Messaging" apps built on top of Sk…

> And the startup is sooooo slow and the UI crashes twice before I ever get the chance to give it input.

Then your installation is clearly broken. No, it's not good, but let's not pretend these issues didn't exist in the "good old days".

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Firefox was a stripped down, light browser so it stayed fast - now they include more useless garbage than Netscape Communicator ever did. Sorry, I don't think Pocket and Hello surpasses the junk bundled with Communicator, which came with a custom mail client. Mozilla's mail client is not only not installed with Firefox, but it's also pretty much dead now, in fact.

Email was the only other useful part. Thunderbird is not exactly dead, just forgotten. I still run it, since I de-googled, though sadly it's also turning into bloatware. Netscape had a chat thing, html publisher, and I think something else. WebRTC, pocket, the webIDE, even things like the dom inspector, style editor etc and pdf are bloat for most mortals. Perfect for some "official" plugins. They managed it for the F…

Why is WebRTC bloat? A lot of people us it for video calls nowadays. Pocket is a neat solution for avoiding having lots of tabs eating your memory, which in turn ends up causing page swapping and messing with your experience.

"pdf are bloat for most mortals"

That's alright, it means in 99% cases it's just a very small javascript file on your disk. No harm done.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Thunderbird daily for the better part of a decade until about 3 months ago. It's nothing personal against the project, which is currently the best serious desktop mail client available afaik. It's simply that Mozilla doesn't care about it anymore since everyone uses webmail now. Thunderbird is doing feature releases about once a year now [0], and Mozilla has pulled most (all?) of its full-time developers [1].…

You should try Nylas N1

I don't like the fact that it uses an external API. I don't like a third party (other than my mail host) to have access to my email password and messages.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#384
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you wanted to look up a business on your phone you'd have to call directory enquiries - did that "work better" than your smartphone? Bad example. I didn't need a smartphone for this task because there was a real live human being, who brought to the task all of the adaptability and intuition that modern systems lack. I didn't need Yelp, or Google Maps, or even the entire name of the business I was looking for. "I…

> I didn't need a smartphone for this task because there was a real live human being, who brought to the task all of the adaptability and intuition that modern systems lack. OK, my example was simplistic. I want to find the best chicken tacos in San Francisco. I can't call directory enquiries for that - I have go find reviews. Then call to make a reservation at the place, then find driving directions of how to get th…

> That's a political decision, not a technical regression.

It's both. Private supersonic flights are no longer available, and it is more of a pain in the ass to get on the inferior flights that are available.

I could go on, but it's moot -- the only point I'm here to make is that progress always been paired with regression, and it's always going to be a personal decision as to whether the tradeoffs were good ones.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> might as well use IRC. Worse: For IRC you can use quassel (self-hosted) or IRCCloud (4$/month). So with IRC you get more, but even cheaper.

The problem with IRC is that the plugins aren't as discoverable and more of a pain in the neck to integrate. When you're not in channel on IRC, you don't have access to anything that was said prior to joining the channel which means you don't even have any immediate history, or context to a conversation that is ongoing when you join. At least with Slack you have 10,000 messages of history, which is at least enough to…

All these issues you mentioned are solved by using IRCCloud or Quassel – I currently have a backlog for the channels I’m in via Quassel back to 2014 – available in the app, over the webapp, via the program on Windows, Mac and Linux.

The only issue with IRC is discoverability.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#386
post #256
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * 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 elimi…

History. MS past is plenty reason to avoid skype.

Why? Management changes, engineers change, everything changes. Saying "No" just because it's Microsoft is incredibly short-sighted.

And even if it were so: the product as it is today was mostly developed while it wasn't even under Microsoft.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#387
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skype used to be great, but started to downspiral fast as soon as it was acquired by MS. Before that, Skype was running on all my devices 24/7, but then (after MS acquisition) it started taking way too much resources and crashing constantly what resulted that I barely use Skype anymore, only turn it on when I have to make/receive an international call that was planned in advance. Not to mention forced updates (that r…

IMO Skype was pretty bad before MS but only in that the messages wouldn't always synchronize or get delivered between computers so conversations were very difficult but if the client was at least okay. When MS bought it everything went to shit. Still had the problems with messaging/sync but if you had a surface pro it'd be impossible to send files or share contacts on the preinstalled metro app which IMO is a pretty…

still doesn't synchronize notifications well..

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#388
post #154

I'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…

Skype is shit, but Hangouts is not even a contender * No desktop client * Connected to your google account meaning I'll need to juggle several google accounts to keep my personal and business chats separate Just the fact it doesn't have a native desktop client makes it unusable. I know there are workarounds I can use like nativefier but it's still not as smooth as a desktop app. Running in the browser: - Gets grouped…

> * No desktop client Uhmmm... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-hangouts/kn... ... You don't even need to have Chrome open, just installed.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#389
post #21

Does the OS X client work well for anyone else? I keep having inability to join calls, getting stuck in calls and at worst even having the client say I'm not in any calls and no sound coming out of my speakers while others can still see me in the call and hear my microphone .

well, that seems like just about the most terrifying failure mode possible.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#390
post #377
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be my last reply. > static linked on a kde library that had widget, new one doesn't have that nor a fallback, application crashes. As I said before, please read up on what static linking means. > like, mindrover the europa project port. $ file Mindrover\ The\ Europa\ Project\ DEMO\ r1-lgp-x86.run Mindrover The Europa Project DEMO r1-lgp-x86.run: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dyna…

Completely off topic but thank you ! I was starting C programming and I was wondering how to check an executable dependencies. If I were to package an executable which was dynamically linked to use it on another computer without recompiling binaries, how could I proceed ? does ldd show the dependencies of the dependencies too ? Would it be sufficient to put all shared libraries into the same folder as the executable…

I think ldd should show this, not sure though. And you can't just put them in the same folder, the thing you want to look up is LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
Post reply on HN