Open Beta
After almost 9 months of development, rumours, frustration, hope, absence of hope, resurrection of hope and killing of hope again I’m somewhat happy to announce the arrival of Skype for Linux 1.3.0.30 beta!
Since it is a beta its main purpose is to collect a lot of feedback from you, folks. Come and get it [here](http://skype.com/download/skype/linux/13beta.html). I’ll briefly list major changes below, and feel free to tell me about anything that doesn’t work as expected, or even at all 
### ALSA
Well, you certainly know about this – this was the main reason for launching 1.3 and it became its main issue. It’s now pretty stable and therefore possible to show it to the world finally. You will find a selector to switch between ALSA and OSS in the Options menu, Sound Devices tab. Switching between ALSA and OSS might require a restart of Skype, switching call device in ALSA and OSS should be effective immediately (just don’t think it will work inside an active call — it will not).
]]>### Public API
The dbus support haven’t grown much since last time, we’re still with good ol’ 0.23 — this is sad. On the bright side, parsing of many commands has been improved and some nasty bugs fixed. We also have X11 API now, and I will prepare a demo application that shows how to use it soon.
### Graphics and sounds
Latest-greatest emoticons as well as flags are supported in this release. The graphic look of the program itself was refreshed, it looks a bit more sharp now. New sounds are in place, but due to a small bug they might click at the end — please test and tell if they click for you or not.
### Mood messages
Mood messages are now supported, you can set your own in the profile editor (under Full Name) and you can view others’ ones in profile viewer (right click on contact -> View Profile).
There are many smaller bugfixes in the [change log](http://skype.com/download/skype/linux/changelog.html), and even smaller ones that didn’t make it into the list
All in all it’s a major milestone. It will relieve many and grieve some, but I’m optimistically waiting for your feedback.
Enjoy!
I tested skype-beta-1.3.0.30 and skype-beta-1.3.0.37 and both have the same problem on my SUSE 10.1 (kernel 2.6.18):
For the first call (in or out) everything is perfect. Maybe the second and third one as well but after some time (minutes…hour) if someone calls the CPU goes to 100 % and the speach is interrupted. The only solution for this is to quit the application and start again.Everything else works fine.
No other application shows this behaviour.
The old skype does not show this.
I tested today the new skype-beta-1.3.0.50
There are many improvements but the problem with the sound still
exists as described above (27.9.2006).
I’ve been trying to use pulseaudio’s alsa emulation, and I’ve run into the following bug: http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/23. Could you possibly enlighten us to what you were trying to do that triggered the assert so we can track down the bug in pulseaudio. Thanks!
If alsa can access your webcam mic you can use it fine. You just need to setup .asoundrc to split capture/playback between the two alsa cards.
What would be really great is if you could specify a specific alsa device name so that you don’t have to setup your headset/etc. as the default playback device for everything else.
Works fine, now if it only supported webcams via /dev/video I could quit running windows and the 3.0 beta under vmware to talk with my relatives.
Dear Skype,
Yes, things may not be as advanced as the other platforms, but just wanted to say, thank you for supporting Linux and all the hard work that goes into it, I can only imagine. This version ( 1.3) for me is running really well on Ubuntu ( 6.10 ). Thanks.
Well…I don’t wanna sound ungrateful or anything but …3.0.smtng for windows and 1.3 for linux??!?!?! I mean, do smtng, i wanna use my webcam it’s 2007 after all!
If you think it’s just “pling” and you have Skype for Linux 4.0 with webcam, sms and a cherry on top – you are very very mistaken.
Have patience.
I think all Linux users have been more than patient… But the simple truth is that as long as MS holds such a huge share of the OS’s market they will always be neglected. The majority of users willing to pay for the non-free services of Skype use Windows and that’s the only reason for this “versions mismatch”. The fact itself that a free MSN Messenger clone exists (amsn) and is no worse than the original MS software should tell you something – it’s not the platform, it’s what the company’s market researches show.
Cheers
Skype Video on Windows and Mac is now available… but where is Linux ??? Why Skype for linux doesn’t support video?!! I is felt discriminated…
for everyone who want/need videochat in skype for linux, but skype developers fu…ck linux users : http://www.openwengo.org/index.php/openwengo/public/homePage/openwengo/public/projectsClassicScreenShots
Please,
a) stop whining
b) refrain from posting openwengo links here.
If you think it’s all fast and easy to write such a client, please try to implement e.g. openwengo from the ground up, then I will look at you.
FO now, thank you.
Hi, Berkus. I just wanted to say I really appreciate all your work and efforts to develop Skype for Linux. I realize that everything existing in the Linux world regarding Skype is all your creation. And I don’t think anybody here’s blaming you for the current situation. A man alone can’t keep up with the pace of an entire team…It’s just that it’s not fair you know.
VIDEO???
seems obvious that there are are more and more linux users. If skype doesn’t support video on linux soon people might switch to other softs.
If Skype doesn’t start offering consistency between client features then I will be forced to search for or write an alternative.
So far I have found this:
http://www.qnext.com/
Which seems to offer the same features to users of Linux, OSX, and Windblows.
Skype should start respecting its users and offer the small percentage of Linux and Mac users with the same features. Some of us decide on VoIP solutions for large organisations.
Wait wait, galataranator. Are you threatening me?
Thanks for all your work in getting Skype for Linux. As far as video, I’d like to request using the v4l2 api if/when you get around to implementing it. Thanks.
Peut-être que les dév de skype sont trop occupés à faire fonctionner la version pour Vista correctement.
Et Linux passera au second plan
Nice, now if I could only make it run on 64-bit Ubuntu..
Skype 1.4 looks good. It would be great one AMD64 version.
I know that there is the static version and you must start it with linux32…bla bla bla. but that is a temporary solution.
It dont cost nothing to compile one amd64 binary, which arquitecture is quite popular in this days.
Thank you for your job and effort.
Dear Berkus,
My internet cafe is waiting for the video function in Skype for linux. Due to the popularity of the video chat(MSN, Yahoo, Skype) in my place, I still using Windows… I won’t go for Wengo & others, our hope is in Skype now, please dear Berkus… xD
How about these….
Video, where the fu**ck is the video. OpenWengo has video on linux, and its based on a decompiled version of skype.
If your gonna keep it closed source, you might as well keep up with the open source community.
IA32EXT/X86_64/AMD 64 support.
If your gonna keep it closed source, you might as well keep up with the open source community.
PPC for linux.
If your gonna keep it closed source, you might as well keep up with the open source community.
If you cant keep up, or get a bigger team, then people will stop using skype as it falls behind open source ripoffs like openwengo.
Re. Skype-2.0.0.27-fc5:
This Ver. can’t accept the password with blank letter.
If the password includes the blank letter, the login button can’t press.
2.0.0.13-fc5 is ok