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Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

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Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#331

Post by gaius »

untog wrote: post #294
anexprogrammer wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most things worked far, far better 10 years ago than today. Apparently this is progress. Social everything means we can't visit a website today without calls to a billion external domains. Phones are doing the same as they're mini-tablets that suck at actual phone calls. Operating systems have taken on mobile centric (and the hideous flatten everything) design that is broken paradigm for a 15" laptop or 24" desktop s…

> 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…

I will look you in the eye and say the Amiga and ST in 1986 were better than Windows or Ubuntu in 2016.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#332

Post by vasili111 »

schindlabua wrote: post #321
vasili111 wrote: post #49

The reality is that, Skype is a kind of software that is better to use Windows version + WINE than native Linux version.

And even then, the Windows version is shit too so we should just be switching to a different service.

Sounds good and I would love to do that. But there is no real alternative of Skype right now.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#333

Post by JupiterMoon »

gravypod wrote: post #316

I've seen my friends slowly drift away from Skype. At this point when I install a new operating system, I just use web.skype.com to get in touch with my friends that haven''t moved onto something else. It works the same on all platforms, but I don't know if many people know about the web client. It's really helpful.

Doesn't work for me on Linux (I can't make calls).

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#334

Post by untog »

gaius wrote: post #331
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…

I will look you in the eye and say the Amiga and ST in 1986 were better than Windows or Ubuntu in 2016.

They might have been better at the small subset of things Windows and Ubuntu can do that the Amiga and ST were also capable of, but they are not "better".

A single screwdriver is better than a toolbox at being light and easy to carry. It is not better overall.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#335

Post by nocman »

cookiecaper wrote: post #278
smarinov wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for letting us know it was dead. I haven't realised it for the part few years of daily usage.

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].…

Call me a dinosaur, but I'll keep using it as long as it is available. Web email clients SUCK.

And there's about 10 million users that evidently have a reason to keep using it:

https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2015/12/thunderbird-act...

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#336

Post by rocky1138 »

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.

The only thing I use Hangouts for is free calling to the US. As soon as that's gone, I'll never use it again.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#337

Post by JupiterMoon »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #150
sangnoir wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maintaining anything proprietary under linux is a chore, with the ABI changing every year for no reason Is Skype a special snowflake to the extent that it's an impossible task? Skype-on-Linux's problem are caused by interface changes with the server API, not the ABI. Recompiling isn't rocket science.

recompiling isn't. packaging for every distribution, edge and not and building autoconf for all of them and ifdef all over the code? not rocket science either, but that stuff does carry an increased cost

Static linking would solve this. You end up with a bigger application and have to do updates every time a library needs a security patch. But you have this anyway if e.g. you release a python application on Windows.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#338

Post by pistle »

bnastic wrote: post #257
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…

From what I remember, it might have to do with the fact that they had to refactor the whole thing to not rely on P2P, which was its original model, since the rise of smartphones and unstable mobile networking? I think it now runs similarly to Hangouts - out of datacenters.

Don't bring facts to the piss on Skype party... This is 100% true. I worked at a state university. If someone was running Skype, because of the algorithm for determining such things, our users all became supernodes on the Skype P2P network which pummeled the network.

They eventually banned Skype on any machine connected to the network with prejudice. This impacted international research projects as Skype had been saving a ton of international comm. money to that point.

And, as usual, those who have a gripe are loud. I use Skype every day and I am never able to feign like I don't get messages from people. It never drops and it hits three devices at once. My digital leash serves its masters just fine...

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#339

Post by gravypod »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #333
gravypod wrote: post #316

I've seen my friends slowly drift away from Skype. At this point when I install a new operating system, I just use web.skype.com to get in touch with my friends that haven''t moved onto something else. It works the same on all platforms, but I don't know if many people know about the web client. It's really helpful.

Doesn't work for me on Linux (I can't make calls).

Oh, well that might be a problem. I'm young enough that all my friends hate the sound of each others voices. I only use the messaging platform.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#340

Post by minusSeven »

This is not just limited to linux. I use skype occasionally on blackberry and their app on blackberry is despicable. They made slight bug fixes 6 months back after some 2 years of not updating the app. Now it works but still experience lot of crashes. They never bothered to release a native app and people just the android ported one.
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