Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#421

Post by JustSomeNobody » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #277

cookiecaper wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree. It's a really common excuse and I think it somewhat diminishes the credibility of those who use it. I don't think anyone's opinion on what constitutes a "truly horrible codebase" should count until they've been a developer for at least 10 years, worked at several different employers, and contributed to several different large open-source projects (which usually have the luxury of rejecting code until t…

Depending know how horrible it gets that starts to affect maintainability and development of new features.

You mean like SQL query strings sprinkled throughout and IF'd depending on the DB type? Yeah...

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#422

Post by criddell » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:11 PM UTC

jjawssd wrote: post #379

balabaster wrote: post #275

There are viable alternatives to Skype. I've been using Slack ( https://slack.com/ ) for a while too... it does everything useful that you could ask of a chat application and works very much like IRC worked back in the day. Everything it doesn't do natively, there's an integration for, just like with IRC bots. You can do: - Private chat with one or more parties - Open Group chat via channels (both private and public…

Slack is not a Skype replacement

It replaces the text messaging part which is the only part of Skype I use.

I'm slowly trying to convince my coworkers to move from Skype to our Slack instance.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#423

Post by Klathmon » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

matzipan wrote: post #409

Klathmon wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be disingenuous. There isn't a consumer OS out there that can do 100% smooth seamless upgrades between major versions. OSX, iOS, Android, Linux, and Windows all have pretty big issues when doing upgrades.

I haven't really had problems with OS X. There's the occasional odd package under Linux which remains installed and you need to manually remove it, but nothing unfixable. But I guess that depends more on the underlying OS structure. I'm looking forward to see more widespread usage of Snappy Ubuntu. Since that is the main way people migrate to Windows 10, I would've expected them to be more careful with it.

Many linux systems don't even support in-place upgrades between major versions. And I don't think i've ever had one work where nothing broke.

RHEL only started supporting it for the transition between 6 and 7 on a like 3 architectures on one edition.

And OSX has it's share of issues. For me personally, updating to El Capitan was the worst upgrade processes i've done in recent memory. From not running the installer but giving no issues, to not finding the harddrive during the install process, to corrupting the current install of yosemite, to bluetooth being broken after the upgrade, and i can't get wifi speeds over 1mbps.

A clean install solved all of that, but that's pretty normal with every single OS i've ever encountered.

It's not a question of being "more careful", it's that writing software in a way that it can be in-place upgraded to something you don't know will exist at the time is EXTREMELY HARD! I really feel it's one of the big "unsolved problems" in computer science and i don't see it being solved any time soon.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#424

Post by simonebrunozzi » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:25 PM UTC

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #31

Skype worked far, far better 10 years ago than it does today. From all indications I've seen, Skype is getting dramatically worse all the time. From a personal standpoint, it crashes for me multiple times a day and I can rarely get group calls working on the first try. Often Skype requires a force-quit and then it crashes twice more when it is being restarted. This is on Mac and Android. Fun fact: I have a friend who…

Who's "the man"?

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#425

Post by mikeash » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:34 PM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #346

untog wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most things worked far, far better 10 years ago than today. Apparently this is progress. Sigh. 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? Did you prefer RealPlayer over HTML video? Was WAP better than LTE? Was Windows XP the pinnacle of OS design? Yeah, sometimes progress is a double-edged sword that outdates some things we…

> 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…

Pining for RealPlayer? That's a new one.

Buffering....

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#426

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:36 PM UTC

chc4 wrote: post #232

junto wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Tox does all of that. XMPP does all of that. WebRTC does all of that. There are tons of shitty proprietary clones of Skype that also do all of that, too. There are plenty of options, people just don't use them because all their friends are on Skype.

>Tox does all of that.

Tox is getting there, but it doesn't appear to support asynchronous messaging that syncs later when some of the people in a chat are offline. If that's wrong let me know.

>XMPP does all of that.

That's like saying "TCP does all that". Would you like to name programs that support the full list?

>WebRTC does all of that.

As far as I can tell WebRTC has nothing to do with chat.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#427

Post by washadjeffmad » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:45 PM UTC

I've never used Skype. Is there something it does better or differently than any other VOIP/messaging client that's made their poor Linux support such a popular issue, other than it was better before Windows bought it?

My current daily means of communication on Linux is Google Voice/Hangouts, but I've also used others over the years, like GnomeMeeting/Ekiga, TeamViewer, and TeamSpeak. They've all worked fairly easily and without issue. With all the options, could someone explain why Skype matters?

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#428

Post by ecopoesis » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:48 PM UTC

Skype on the Mac is also terrible.

* Doesn't integrate with Keychain, so I always have to login. * When logging in, pressing TAB when in the username field submits the form rather then go to password field. * Now I've failed my login enough that I need to reset my password. And Live doesn't let me reuse an old password, guaranteeing I'll lock myself out next time. * Even better, my Xbox won't login in now, so I either have to do this stupid dance again, or just use the Playstation.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#429

Post by stormbrew » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:49 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #373

anexprogrammer wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course LTE and HTML video is better :p Having so many apps constantly spitting unnecessary data out to trackers and heaven knows what isn't better. Neither is simple apps that can't cope when you go out of data coverage, which seems to be becoming more common. I'd rather have gnome 2 than 3, I'd rather have Win 7 than 10 or XP. I don't consider any of them the pinnacle of design, but I don't think they're currentl…

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…

> And I much prefer current hangouts to the old google talk plugin. "small", "light"? Did you ever use it. You needed to download and install 2 separate programs to get Google Talk video chat working. Sometimes you'd need to do some port forwarding bullshit just to get it to work.

I'm pretty sure the GP is referring to the native google talk client that gtalk was originally launched with. It was indeed a very simple jabber+sip client (by far the simplest of the major available clients) and had a tiny memory footprint. It did nothing but chat and voice calls.

It looked like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/75/Google_talk.g...

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#430

Post by ex3ndr » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:53 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #158

xiaoma wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google talk circa 2008 was a lot nicer than Hangouts is now, too. The resource usage was lower, the UI was nicer and it was more responsive. It's really a shame they killed it.

Yet Hangouts is much lower friction and generally easier to use than Skype! What good alternatives are there to Hangouts? Preferably something that doesn't require flaky browser plugins.

Our Actor.im - we support good webrtc calls and we are nice unlike others.