As you have probably noticed, we have finally released an update for Linux in the form of a new beta - 2.1.0.47, in addition to the major video and audio improvements, it also contains numerous other feature enhancements including SMS, Contact Groups, typing notifications, and cosmetic improvements to the contact list, as well as many more.

You can download it from here, or wait until your distributions include it in their package repositories.

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/linux/choose/

A list of changes and known issue notes from 2.0 is available here:

https://developer.skype.com/LinuxSkype/ReleaseNotes

We're interested in your feedback on this new release. Please let us know what you think of these improvements, and whether they add some extra usefulness to the client for you.

Thanks,
Andrew.

Note: I've created 4 individual feedback threads to cover video, ALSA, PulseAudio and this general thread. It's best to keep specific topics in their respective threads, which will allow us to better keep track and improve upon any issues that arise, as well as for people to support one another if there are distribution-specific questions.

Hello I just tested skype 2.1 for Ubuntu Linux 9.04 32 bit.
I saw lots of improvements, but at the same time I couldn't use the microphone.
Pulse audio server was selected by default and I had no other options to change in that area. i changed some options from ubuntu's multimedia selector, I tried pulse audio server, Open sound system and ASLA but the microphone never worked.

I am very glad Skype released a new version for Linux, please keep up the good work.

Thank you

Hey,

First of all, thanks for the new version. Skype is an amazing tool for a work-from-home developer like me, and I spend most of my time in linux.

The first thing i did was use my distro's package manager to install 2.1, which resulted in a segfault in _dl_fixup every time (anti-debugging gone wrong?). I took a look at the files: three resources directories and the binary. All the package manager's script for this package does is move those into share and bin. No idea why this results in segfaults. Tried various working directories.

When i extract the tarball manually and do ./skype, it works. Okay, so moving on...

The new app looks good. I use --disable-cleanlooks and the GTK skin and it integrates flawlessly with my desktop, no display issues. The startup (whooooooOOOOP) sound skipped, as did the ringing sound. In call, the sound was fine however.

I hit a big issue, though: On my first call with my parents on a landline, they reported being able to hear everything they said reverb through my speakers. I switched back to 2.0 and the issue went away - it resumed canceling that sound out perfectly. I prefer not to wear headphones all day, so being able to have calls on my speakers is pretty necessary.

Finally, i messed around with a skype chat i was in. I couldn't see the chat's picture - i tried to assign a new one from a (kind of large) jpg file and it said it could not load the image. Not sure what's going on there.

Keep the updates coming!

- Neph

Hi

I've just installed it, although I haven't tested much yet, but the first thing I've noticed is no random crashed within 10 minutes usage, and also I'm able to chat. It's a major improvement (6 months late though).

I was also glad to see some improvements in the features, so I look forward to testing them and reporting back.

Even though I'm glad to see that there is a new version, I still feel the need to say: please improve the speed of development or at least start using giving us access to testing versions, so we can give feedback more effectively. We are a lot of users who'll gladly use svn builds, take the errors and report back, you won't find better testers.

Hi,

I've just tried to install static qt version (the last package on the list) on a 64bit gentoo machine, but i've got an error "binary file corrupted, please reinstall skype". Is it normal new version's behaviour?
EDIT: seems like this is a problem of old ebuild. Because just extracted from archive, it works. Will try to write a new ebuild

Hello,

I'm glad to see that skype for linux development is still alive.
I can see from the changelog that you have been quite busy fixing many nasty bugs.

One bad thing I found about this new version is the lack of support for OSSv4. I have tried this new version on Arch Linux 64bit and I'm using OSSv4 because ALSA behaves terribly in my notebook, therefore not having support for OSS prevents me from doing any calls thus leading me not to take advantage of all the new features added and the correction made.

I hope that adding support for OSSv4 later on (hoppefully soon) is being considered or already worked upon.

Thanks for the update. I have one annoying bug to report: In the options menu, when you click on a different section the window often doesn't automatically update/redraw. When you move the window around, it finally redraws. This is on Ubuntu 9.04. I suspect it is a QT issue?

Hi,

I'm testing the static binary version under Ubuntu 9.04.

I noticed that now, if I open skype and firefox is already open, that using skype does not "mute" flash applications, for example youtube videos (before it was necessary to restart firefox).

On the other hand now if I open a flash video in firefox then the skype test call returns only an interference sound (otherwise it works well). Restarting skype does not fix the problem, just rebooting the system.

First of all, it's nice to see new Skype version. Now it works OK with PulseAudio for me. Thanx for that. :-)

The only feature I _really_ miss now is keyboard configuration. I want to send messages with CTRL+Enter and go to new line with just Enter in Chat. But Skype doesn't allow me to change default keys (or maybe I just didn't find where I can do it).

Nephyrin, I had the same problem with segfault in Mandriva 2009.1 i586. I made RPM (build just moves files to bin and share, nothing more) but I got modified Skype binary that segfaulted on start. cmp command showed the difference:

# cmp skype skype-orig -b -l
126244 0 ^@ 133 [
155781 0 ^@ 305 M-E
155782 0 ^@ 266 M-6
155783 0 ^@ 205 M-^E
155784 0 ^@ 366 M-v
155785 0 ^@ 76 >
155786 0 ^@ 34 ^\
155787 0 ^@ 164 t
155788 0 ^@ 345 M-e
155789 0 ^@ 216 M-^N
155790 0 ^@ 220 M-^P
155791 0 ^@ 175 }
155792 0 ^@ 345 M-e

I added "%define dont_strip 1" to my spec and got working RPM package after the build. Maybe that can help you too.

All I get is:
> skype
Aborted
So what can I do to obtain more information?
How do I get a detailed error message?

I am running Suse11.1 with KDE4.1.3 on 64bit and kernel 2.6.27.29-0.1-default. I returned to Skype 2.0.0.72 and it continues to work just fine.
(Of course, still without webcam, but this is a known issue with the newer kernels, right?)

I downloaded the Suse RPM provided on the Skype download page. It installed without any hickups, i.e. all dependencies were resolved.

On my Ubuntu 9.04 x86_64 no avatars are showing. This was the case in previous versions of Skype. Will this bug be fixed before the final release of 2.1?

Skype 2.0.0.72 OSS work for me even with webcam, ok it's a bit prone to crashing but I have both audio and video working.

Webcam: ID 04f2:b066 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
This webcam is supported by the uvcvideo driver that comes with the kernel (it works with through v4l2 I believe).

USB headset: ID 046d:0a0b Logitech, Inc.

Before you ask, yes the USB headset works, even though USB support is still beta in OSSv4, please not that I'm not talking about the old and deprecated oss that comes (or used to come) with the kernel. I'm talking about the one developed by 4Front Technologies that is open source now.

I just wanted to reply to mention that overall I am very happy with this release! Every thing works better, the pulseaudio support rocks, and I am very appreciative of the Linux support (Ubuntu 9.04 here).

The only thing I noticed is that double clicking on a contact seems to open the chat now; I swore that used to start a call. Now I have to click the much tinier call button.

There is an option to change this in the options menu on the General tab!

Ah, thanks so much!

No worries! :-)

I don't find this option on the menu. Where is it?

WISH: could old skype tray icon come back? Or could we have an option to customize it? Because old icon was a lot better

Yes, before when i clicked on the tray icon it opened me a chat window with the user who last replied to me.
Now to do the same one needs to open skype end to double click on received messages.
It is a lot less practical!

Don't know if this is a QT issue, a Compiz one or a nVidia drivers one, but I solved this way:

open CompizConfig
select Utility
select Workarounds
Chek the "Force synchronization between X and GLX" option

That fixed a lot of other issues with other QT apps (Adobe Reader and all KDE specific apps) and OpenOffice.org too.

Regards

First off -- massive thanks for offering a beta release.

I've got a really strange bug -- when I initiate a call with more than one other participant, the audio I hear is /way/ messed up... ie. stuttering chipmunks. All other participants in the conference have no audio issues, including SkypeOut participants.

This occurs regardless of whether I address the PulseAudio or ALSA sound device. (Which is why I posted in this thread).

Single-caller interactions are fine, video is fine, all other audio apps are fine.

I'm running Ubuntu Jaunty on AMD64.

Aside from this, the release seems shiny... looking forward to the finished product.

A follow-on to my previous post... all is not quite so shiny with the new release. USB Audio seems badly broken.

When using a USB audio device for audio output, I get no output (and no error) using either PulseAudio or ALSA. When using the same device for input, and the built-in audio device for output, the other end of the connection gets a very loud buzzing sound, and nothing more. I can replicate this with several USB audio devices.

I have replicated this with the stock Jaunty PulseAudio, and the PPA mentioned in an earlier post.

Since there're lots of people using the static version because of the 64 bit setup, it would be nice to provide a native 64 bit version (even if it's alpha version) of Skype. Adobe did that with Flash, so why you can't do the same? It would be much better.

So when we're going to see a 64 bit Skype version? Thanks.

There is a slight, but quite annoying problem where if Skype pops up a notification while watching a video on the Totem movie player in Fedora 11, the sound of the movie is interrupted, but worse, the player automatically pauses the video.

Thank you very much for your work.

I'm currently testing on Fedora11.

The first thing I noticed is a small bug present since V2.0.

I normally log in automatically at startup but inadvertently starting a second Skype instance screws up the auto-login feature and at the next start it will ask me the password.

Can this be fixed?

Regards.

Alessandro

This beta version seems to work much better than the latest stable release. However, there are two things that could be improved:

1. Chat messages after a delay - sometimes, messages get delayed for whatever reason (perhaps bad Internet connection) and then when the other person sends a message, e.g. "still there?", it'll be displayed in a new chat window. This doesn't happen all the time and I can't predict when it will. It would be better if the messages could appear in the existing chat window all the time.

2. Spell checking would be useful for chat.

I love Skype and I use it often but, ever since I installed it from the skype site onto my Ubuntu 9.04 install, it's had massive issues with crashing and shutting down all together. This is very annoying as I'm sure you can imagine. Any help at all would be more than welcome. Feel free to hit me up on skype.

Thanks! (bow)
H.0.W.

An update.

USB audio seems to be working fine on my Fedora11 laptop, but in the Sound Devices options I can only choose PulseAudio server (local): I'm therefore unable to, for example, divert ringing to my main speakers as I used to do with V2.0.

Alessandro

I'm using skype on Ubuntu 9.04
With latest beta i do not have sound issues anymore.
I do not see skype "hangingup" or crashing anymore.
A great feature I was looking forward has finally been implemented in Skype for Linux - contact groups. Although it does not work as expected: still can't hide offline contacts, can't sort groups (manually - would be my preferation).

Press Ctrl+U

It's true. All of my former exuberance notwithstanding, it does seem a shame that there isn't a way to directly choose the soundcard (for ringing as having a bluetooth headset in your ear all the time is slightly annoying.

A solution may be with an .asoundrc file. Previously, an .asoundrc file seemed to munge up the pulseaudio interaction with skype (and in my case made it impossible to use bluetooth) and other things and getting rid of it seemed to solve many issues. But that was back in the 2.0 days.

I'm sure there's a way to make this work so I'm going to mess around with one and I'll post my results.

Unless someone else out there has already done it. . . ?



It's true. All of my former exuberance notwithstanding, it does seem a shame that there isn't a way to directly choose the soundcard (for ringing as having a bluetooth headset in your ear all the time is slightly annoying.

A solution may be with an .asoundrc file. Previously, an .asoundrc file seemed to munge up the pulseaudio interaction with skype (and in my case made it impossible to use bluetooth) and other things and getting rid of it seemed to solve many issues. But that was back in the 2.0 days.

I'm sure there's a way to make this work so I'm going to mess around with one and I'll post my results.

Unless someone else out there has already done it. . . ?

sorry for the repeat. I think I hit the Add Reply button twice before the page updated.

When I try and run the dynamic package, I get a segmentation fault.. no other output.. not even a log.. not sure how to debug this.. qt and all the other deps are up to date... afaik.
running static does work though...

when making a test call, skype crashes all my audio.. and when I close the options page and try to quit... everything freezes.

A problem I've found is with contact list synchronisation. I had Skype set up on Windows (4.x I think) and when someone added me, I added them too. Under Linux (with the 2.1 version), the new contact didn't show up in the list, so I had to add them again.

First of all: thanks for this beta version!

Skype seems to start a lot faster than before and most important (for me): the contact groups are back

Here is what I tested and noticed so far.

Why is there no 64bit version for Debian or other Distributions, whereas Ubuntu has one?

I'd prefer not to have the contact groups as a menu but rather as another page in the options. Do enable/disable a contact group one has to click throug the menu which can take a quite long time for multiple entries. With an options page and checkboxes the contact group management would be much more accessible.

The Systray Icon is as FUBAR as ever (see attached screenshot). I am running Skype on Debian Lenny (AMD64, this also happens on i386) in Gnome, but apparently other QT apps don't suffer from this problem.
This is an old problem and I don't expect a solution, I just wanted to remind you of this

And last but not least there seem to be some delays on several actions. E.g. when starting before the "login" sound appears, also when switching to the Sound Devices option page.
When running Skype from a terminal you can see that all possible sound devices seem to get scanned when that happens. Maybe it's possible to just store the settings instead of scanning over and over?

Hi,

I just managed to make skype 2.1 work almost fluently. I'm running intrepid and I had to disable pulseaudio. Indeed, when it is present, it is impossible to select something else in skype audio options. Pulseaudio did almost work besides an annoying echo problem : the caller had an echo at the end of all his sentences. When switching to alsa, this echo disappeared.

Video is working well in standard resolution (I have an EEEPC and I suppose it is not powerful enough for HD video).

I tried also SMS and it works like a charm.

Thanks for this upgrade.

Best,
Jacques

Thanks for the improved version 2.1!

It is not possible to enter Chinese or Korean text in Gnome because Skype is using qt and is not configured properly.

You should add this dependency: scim-bridge-client-qt4

And call skype like this: QT_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge skype

This could be easily done in the deb-package.

Update: I use Ubutu Jaunty 9.04

Hello....

Version 2.1 keep crashing every 5 minutes during call.
Now I want to go back to version 2.0.0.72. Any idea where to download it? Or maybe some one has it? I m using opensuse 11.1, 32 bit.

Thanks.

2 icons are cut if I run Skype with --disable-cleanlooks. Resizing window doesn't fix it.
Click to view attachment

Not sure if you are accepting feature requests, anyway:

1) Search chat history specifying start / end date
2) Option to collapse chat groups clicking on the date header (and maybe a "Collapse all" button)
3) Option to show date along with time for each chat entry
4) Buttons to allow jumping to the next/previous day in the chat

Yeah, I'm a hard-core chatter.

Regards.

Alessandro

same issue that I was experiencing after I installed the package. Not during a call but in general. read up /\ to get last post. It still crashes from time to time.. sure would like ANOTHER option other than loading windows and using skype there. any help with this at all skype teem??? Would really like a stable version.. even if it's an older version. Thanks!!

Hi,
I'm using the lastest version on jaunty. but there is no UI feedback when i send a file to a contact. the contact is receiving the file but i don't know. i have to ask him if he's receiving the file before i knew he was actually receiving the file. but when they send me a file i can see the dialog.
Thanks

Drops calls after ~2mins then crashes for mel. I'm using Ubuntu Jaunty 64bit.

I tested Beta version 2.1 on Ubuntu 9.04 on an Intel motherboard dp35dp. My webcam is the Logitech Quickcam 3000 for Business (046d:09a5) and both, sound input/output and video were detected perfectly. Not only that, but i could watch a movie, hear music with banshee and the skype 2.1 would not have a sound problem with it or would take over the whole sound system. All working good with this.

Also tested:

046d:092e - Logitech Quickcam Chat for Skype
Motherboard - Intel 945G
Results - Works perfectly. No problem whatsoever. Tested webcam, video, sound, compatibility with other programs when using sound, multiple users and sending files.


Another 3 Acer Laptops were also tested but i do not remember their model names. All work good without no problem.

I would like to add that it would be good if i had the option to change with what program to open web links in the chat window. For example i have firefox-3.5 and firefox but by default skype tries to open links with firefox and i would like it to open it with firefox-3.5. I know this can be done bye changing stuff on Ubuntu but it would be good if skype had the option for standard users.

Still waiting to hear from Skype on my issue. It's not crashing all the time but, if I have not logged into Linux for a day or two, I have a triple boot system, when I do log in and start skype up, it immediately starts crashing right off the bat. still very annoying. I would like to get this taken care of ASAP or, get a stable version we can use for Linux. SOME kind of response to this would be fantastic!

Well, if you want help, you could use those Hands to execute "skype &" from a terminal so you can report error messages.. Then you and the devs might have some idea of what Wondrous circumstances cause this uncommon issue.

Before that, (install/upgrade and) run "pavucontrol &" or "paman &" so you can judge whether it's falling over because pulseaudio is crashing.

If you want to downgrade, there's
http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-2.0.0.72-fc5.i586.rpm
and the full .deb name is a simple search away here.

Best wishes

Oh hai!!!
I'm using skype-2.1.0.47 on Gentoo, and I have both good and bad news

Lets start with the good: Thank you very much for the excellent pulseaudio support; this 2.1 beta is actually the first Skype version ever I've been able to use without awful kludges and workarounds (well almost, see below). It seems that the Skype developers have at last taken recent (say, within the last ten years ) Linux audio development seriously.

Now for the bad news: An actual bug report first; the 'Edit Profile'-dialog uses - wrongly - a hardcoded font (in my case a much larger font than rest of the system; I suppose the font is the ubiquitous 'Sans'), all other parts of Skype uses the correct font & font size as defined by the system.

Next another GUI issue: The shared-qt builds should NOT use the cleanlooks style by default; It is understandable with static builds, but there are no reason to use some fixed style if the user already has the qt libraries in his/her system. I had to edit the /usr/bin/skype wrapper script (provided by the Gentoo packagers) 'skype' > 'skype --disable-cleanlooks' to make sure that skype always uses the system theme regardless of how it is started. At least, you should make a GUI option for it, not just a command-line switch.

(As you can see, this is my pet peeve: I hate it when developers hardcode their fonts and styles, especially on qt-based applications)

Hello!!
I started to use Skype 2.1 on ubuntu 9.04 few days ago.
I loved the idea to finally dismiss my old skype 2.0 and see new enhancements.

The 2.1, It works fine, but still is poor in GUI. Much of problems are already signalled, so i won't repeat them.

My problem, anyway, is new. I am not using PulseAudio, but ALSA alone (because it is unstable on my hp6735s and because previous Skype worked better with Alsa).

To "kill" pulseaudio, i used the instructions in this link:
http://idyllictux.wordpress.com/2009/04/21...seaudio-at-bay/

Now i'm trying to use my bluetooth headse (NOKIA BH-102). Everything works fine, but the stupid thing is the "ringing device". If i try to use the skypeout ("dmix") device, nothing happens. No sound, but the system is working. I can call and speak, but i am unable to hear an incoming call.

If i try to use the BH-102 device also as "ringing device" then it works.
But i don't want to stay 12 hour at day with an headset in my ear to get calls (i have often to redirect my cell phone on my skype account..)
My requirement is to hear a skype call when i am far from pc..

Here is my actual ".asoundrc":

pcm.skypeout
{
type plug
slave.pcm "dmix"
}
ctl.skypeout
{
type hw
card 0
}
pcm.skypein
{
type plug
slave.pcm "dsnoop"
}
ctl.skypein
{
type hw
card 0
}


Obviously this is the same configuration working on 2.0.
Tnx anyway. It is a great product.

Hi

I'm currently running the 2.1 beta on Ubuntu 9.04 - everything works fine *except* calls to landlines and mobiles. I can hear the other end but they can't hear me. Computer to computer calls work as expected. I thought someone else on the forum had a similar problem but I can't find the post again.

This was tried with both the static and Ubuntu 8.10 downloads, to different people in different countries and on different days.

Also, I'm not too impressed that the only download now listed for Linux is the beta, please also provide a link to the 'stable' version, otherwise it's a reboot to use Skype.

Regards,

JLK

I have downloaded the static version of Skype - run it - and on the screen with password: type password - and receive red message: other skype process is running.
.
No other skype is running so there have to be problem in Skype