Skype for Linux 2.1 Beta out now
I’m excited to announce that after almost two years of silence Skype for Linux team is proud to present a first beta of the new, shiny Skype for Linux desktop 2.1.
What’s new in this release:
- Skype’s SILK codec for outstanding quality with negligible bandwidth usage,
- HQ video support,
- PulseAudio support,
- SMS send support (*Sending SMS requires available Skype Credit),
- Contact groups,
- Contact labels, or tags, for easier contact organization,
- Chat window improvements (typing notification, message editing, s/geeky text/replacement/, new emoticons),
- Nicer contact list with mood messages and video capability icons,
- Nicer tray icon.
More details can be seen on the release notes page. (PLEASE READ ABOUT THE KNOWN ISSUES THERE - will save you some time)
Coupled with this release is an updated action_handler script by our long-time betatester Philipp Kolmann. You can see the details on how to configure your favourite browser here.
Give the version 2.1.0.47 a go and send your feedback to our JIRA, comments to this post and to our forums.
As this is a public beta we are eagerly awaiting your constructive feedback. Enjoy!
- The Linux Team.
So, I’m on Kubuntu karmic i386.
My first try wasn’t so cool, I had only one choise on my audio setup (pulse) and I had frequent freeze of skype.
After that an aptitude safe-upgrade removed all my pulse/gstreamer libray, now I have, in audio setup, my old list (defaut device, HDA Intel, etc…).
Leaving default device will result in a perfect sound, video, and overall working.
So people using karmic should try an aptitude safe-upgrade to remove pulseaudio.
Berkus, I’m impressed about the audio quality skype 2.1 has. Thanks
Thanks a lot for this update — I’ve been waiting for it ever since pulse audio has been integrated into ubuntu. Also, yet another thumbs up for deciding NOT to push the interface to look more similar to what windows users get; I believe that the current mac-inspired, more streamlined UI is just perfect.
If Skype crash after start call (pulseaudio enabled) then try uncheck “allow skype to adjust mixer settings” This help me.
Mandriva 2009.1
Pulseaudio 0.9.15
Works very well on a HP dv7 notebook, with Fedora 11.
Thanks again guys, that’s what I’m waiting for months!!
Everything works here out of box:
Arch Linux x86_64 with ALSA 1.0.20, without Pulseaudio. Cam was working with 2.0. But I’ve only tested it with “test” in Skype options, so I don’t know if quality is hi. Audio tested with Skype test call.
My camera:
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0c45:62c0 Microdia Sonix USB 2.0 Camera
And one big drawback: I had to install additional 14 libs, which are already on my system (but in 64bit version). So next most important “feature” for me (and probably other 64bit Linux users) is native 64bit version. I hope that you’ll release it soon.
regards,
Maciek
On debian amd64 unstable I have following issue:
The sound disappears in the conference call for the conference creator. The conference members have no problems even the creator can speak to them.
Tested on two computers without pulseaudio – pure alsa (audigy 2zs and x-fi)
@berkus
Having trouble with the current beta of Skype. I can hear everything just fine, but my voice is heard very faintly and in the midst of other strange noises…like a radio that hasn’t been quite tuned into the correct station. Odd…Skype 2.0 worked just fine after selecting the correct Alsa device. The new version only gives me the PulseAudio option :
Two thumbs up! Great Job! Thank you, berkus, and the whole skype for linux team!!
Works great on my lappie…)))
Telling all my linux using friends about the news!!!
@Berkus,
Great Job! But for me it is too late. After wait, wait, wait, wait and wait for a pulseaudio support, I changed my voip provider to a local SIP provider to make long distance calls. Now I use ekiga, it is not perfect, but is open source.
With skype, in last few months, I feeled abandoned.
regards,
pativanjf
Finaly SMS function in Skype Linux. Now it would be great if Skype is in my language. Dutch. Anyone know how to add Dutch language support to Skype?
hffrerejean/at/gmail.com
Rob
My laptop microphone doesn’t work with this version, all I get is a buzzing sound. Could be a PulseAudio issue as I haven’t tested using a mic with PulseAudio through any other apps. It worked through ALSA on the previous Skype though.
Ah, it seems to be working now.
the new skype look better, i use it on 3 computer (only the linux versions).
i cant use on my netbook (and very important), it crash if i write in chat
and i havent backup from older skype version
please help me
3 computer is with Ubuntu Janty (with last upgrades).
w00t!!!!
Works like a charm on a Lenovo SL300 with Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit and Pulseaudio 0.9.14. Even the freakin’ video! Still have to try a conference call, which is where is used to really choke, but this is one happy monkey here today.
Berkus,
First, thank you, thank you very much for dealing with the Linux community’s complaints about slow release cycles and lack of feature parity with the Win versions. Even though the complaints are justified I think most of us know you are doing the best you can with what you have to work with and we do appreciate your efforts even in the same breath we lament Skype’s shortcomings. I am very pleased with the latest release, its stable, supports pulseaudio, and looks and feels very clean and efficient, bravo!
Second, I would like to ask if you have any way to add a feature to simply block all incoming contact authorizations. I know the implications of this and I do not personally care if I never ever receive another contact request (I will add people manually and they will do the same for me). I ask because I, as well as many others, receive close to 100 of these requests per day from spammers trying to get me to click some link or view some webcam, etc. I deny the request and block the user, but it never seems to help. (I do have my privacy settings set to allow only people on my contact list to contact me, but it does not have any effect on contact requests)
You can see more information about what I speak in the following skype forum threads:
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=49841&st=200
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=370161,
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=360781&st=280
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=99101&st=0
Most of them are running the windows version, but because you are in direct contact with the linux community so frequently I thought maybe you would have some insight for us.
Is anyone else out there having this problem as well?
Can’t wait to test it later this evening! Actually all I was really expecting was “the new” audio and codecs, and enhanced/simplified appearance. Two former mentioned ones already seem to be there, but the third is, of course, yet to be tested .
Anyway, great to see some progress, and I’m already thrilled to see some positive feedback!
I would love to see a FreeBSD (7+ or version using OSS.
In Linux world hardly ever anyone is still using 32bit systems. Even adobe and java managed to provide 64bit packages (few years too late though), so what’s stopping skype??
Also pulseaudio support doesn’t work too well:
*** PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Connection refused
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
*** PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Connection refused
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
E: shm.c: Invalid shared memory segment size
*** PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Connection refused
….
(it was working much better using alsa->pulse plugin in previous version). All other programs I’m using work flawlessly with pulse.
I hope one day, skype on linux will be actually usable (maybe recent change of ownership will speed it up).
@berkus:
I was rather thinking of some kind of website for collecting bugs solely so it would be easier for you guys to collect all issues, but ok, I will check the forums .
@r.piasek (and others still waiting for the amd64-version like me):
You shouldn’t urge berkus and his team for the 64-bit version, the code seems to contain alot of i386-specific code and it doesn’t seem to be an easy job to port things to 64 bit. I know there are Java and Flash for amd64, but remember how long the Linux community had to wait until it was ready, it tooks several years, didn’t?
I think if you’re system is setup properly, that is you have the ia32libs installed, there shouldn’t be any problem running the 32-bit version on 64 bit and, in fact, I do myself. There was just one issue with the 32-bit compatibility layer of pulseaudio which seems to cause trouble on some versions of Debian but czarnyckm already found a solution for that, please see above.
@maashuk:
Your problem with 64-bit can be fixed easily, see the post from czarnyckm.
Adrian
I was excited to install the beta and it did fix all my previous bugs, however my microphone sound is now so heavily garbled that people can’t understand me at all. I can hear perfectly.
In an attempt to fix the problem I disabled my pulse audio with these instructions http://www.jeffsplace.net/node/12 (my version 2.0 had to use the ALSA settings to get it working) and tried all the options that became available with Pulse audio disabled. Unfortunately the garbled sounds were not improved (using skype test call).
I have an HP Pavillion dv6000 with built in speakers, mic and web cam. I am running Ubuntu 9.04. Any help would be appreciated.
@berkus
I have installed skype 2.1beta on Ubuntu 9.04 and upgraded pulseaudio to 9.15. While it somewhat worked with pulseaudio 9.14 now it is completely unusable. No calls can go through and there is no sound at all. The hardware is Intel Pentium III 1.133GHz with 1GB RAM. I am using a Logitech headset (which seems to be working)
The message log indicates this message:
warning: `pulseaudio’ uses 32-bit capabilities (legacy support in use)
process `skype’ is using obsolete setsockopt SO_BSDCOMPAT
I had to use kill -9 to exit skype as it would not exit the normal way.
Is there something else I can try? What is wrong?
btw I de-installed and installed skype again to see anything will change.
@berkus:
Would it be possible for Skype to detect that the webcam is not natively supported (like mine , and if not, search for v4l2convert.so and use it like in
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l2convert.so skype
(and if not present print a message saying that one should install the libv4l-wrappers package from the distribution)?
This would help a lot and save a lot of questions…
Nice update, but on my Ubuntu 9.04 x86_64 install, custom contact icons do not display. Just the generic head w/ green shirt.
Nice update, but on my Ubuntu 9.04 x86_64 install, custom contact icons do not display. Just the generic head w/ green shirt.
Sorry… had to downgrade back to 2.0. The new PulseAudio only requirement means that the microphone in my Logitech Pro 9000 cam is not recognized. Anyone now how to get this mic to work with PulseAudio/Skype?
Berkus,
First, thank you, thank you very much for dealing with the Linux community’s complaints about slow release cycles and lack of feature parity with the Win versions. Even though the complaints are justified I think most of us know you are doing the best you can with what you have to work with and we do appreciate your efforts even in the same breath we lament Skype’s shortcomings. I am very pleased with the latest release, its stable, supports pulseaudio, and looks and feels very clean and efficient, bravo!
Second, I would like to ask if you have any way to add a feature to simply block all incoming contact authorizations. I know the implications of this and I do not personally care if I never ever receive another contact request (I will add people manually and they will do the same for me). I ask because I, as well as many others, receive close to 100 of these requests per day from spammers trying to get me to click some link or view some webcam, etc. I deny the request and block the user, but it never seems to help. (I do have my privacy settings set to allow only people on my contact list to contact me, but it does not have any effect on contact requests)
You can see more information about what I speak in the following skype forum threads:
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=49841&st=200
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=370161,
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=360781&st=280
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=99101&st=0
Most of them are running the windows version, but because you are in direct contact with the linux community so frequently I thought maybe you would have some insight for us.
Is anyone else out there having this problem as well?
@rldasilva: Skype 2.1 does not require PulseAudio. I don’t have PulseAudio installed; it runs perfectly with ALSA on my opensuse 11 setup. I am also using the microphone built into my webcam, which is a Logitech Quickcam Pro for Notebooks – afaik exactly the same cam as the QCP 9000 but in a different form factor. So it should all work fine. If you’re having issues with PulseAudio, either upgrade it to the latest or remove it altogether.
nb. I am running the Skype beta static build; in the past I found the static build to be more reliable due to conflicts between Skype and the newer versions of QT. Don’t know if this has been fixed, but you might want to try the static version.
Custom contact icons display fine here.
I don’t want to steer people away from PulseAudio since I believe it is an emerging standard for audio on Linux platforms, however for users who are just interested in getting Skype going and having issues with the new version and PulseAudio, it *does* work with ALSA, and very well in my experience.
@orco.andrea
I have same webcam
You can use ov51x-jpeg (http://www.rastageeks.org/ov51x-jpeg/index.php/Main_Page) driver (and blacklist gspca_ov519) or preload v4l1compat.so library
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype
**BUG REPORT**
This concerns contact groups: When logging in, the contact list slowly builds up, and is usually complete in ~10 seconds. However, while building up, the number of online contacts that’s written next to the group name doesn’t update till you click on any contact name.
So say I had a group called “University (0/20)”, and 5 contacts appeared online upon logging in, the number in parentheses still shows (0/20). Once I click anywhere, it jumps to (5/20), and updates in real time.
Nothing major, just a bit strange. I’ve seen this on the 32-bit Ubuntu package, the static package on Ubuntu 64-bit and Slackware.
**BUG REPORT**
This concerns contact groups: When logging in, the contact list slowly builds up, and is usually complete in ~10 seconds. However, while building up, the number of online contacts that’s written next to the group name doesn’t update till you click on any contact name.
So say I had a group called “University (0/20)”, and 5 contacts appeared online upon logging in, the number in parentheses still shows (0/20). Once I click anywhere, it jumps to (5/20), and updates in real time.
Nothing major, just a bit strange. I’ve seen this on the 32-bit Ubuntu package, the static package on Ubuntu 64-bit and Slackware.
*************[BUG]****************
amd64 does not contain 64bit binary!!!!
Its ELF32 !!!!
**********************************
Again epic fail
***Bug(s) Report***
64-bit Ubuntu 9.04 – Pulseaudio 1.0.9.15
The Skype 2.1 beta looks really great; but I haven’t been able to have a successful call in it yet.
(1) When ever I have called some one, my entire Skype audio (system sounds and call) will go out, so that I cannot hear the other person, and they cannot hear me.
(2) One time, the call froze and Skype crashed randomly.
(3)) Just yesterday, I was adjusting some settings in the options, and Skype froze on me, and then subsequently crashed silently, with no error, or anything of the sort.
I’ll give it another whirl later today – thanks!
I installed skype 2.1 beta on a eeepc 701 4G with orig xandros using this tutorial
http://www.eeepc.de/thema-8066-Skype_2.1_beta_installieren.html
works pretty.
thanks for this version- i waited esp for the sms ability
@berkus
“Having trouble with the current beta of Skype. I can hear everything just fine, but my voice is heard very faintly and in the midst of other strange noises…like a radio that hasn’t been quite tuned into the correct station. Odd…Skype 2.0 worked just fine after selecting the correct Alsa device. The new version only gives me the PulseAudio option :”
UPDATE:I believe this was a Linux issue with my built-in mic. I used a headset with Skype 2.1 and it worked wonderfully. Thank you so much for this new version.
Thank you very much for this release. I have been waiting very anxiously for it.
I have installed it on Jaunty x64 and Jaunty i386. Both are working very well.
The x64 version is not showing avatars – but that is same as last release, and is fine.
The i386 version is working well on the MSI Wind u100 netbook. Finds the camera fine, and pulse is doing the job on the inbuilt hardware.
My only problem is that I had a BT Headset configured to work under ALSA in version 2, which I cannot yet use with pulse. I will try the “sudo aptitude safe-upgrade” as mentioned here, and failing that, try uninstalling pulse to see if Skype will then give my ALSA options back.
Outside of that – Brilliant, THANK YOU! I Love the UI the way you have done it. Great Work Team!
Just an update on my last.
Un-installing pulse (and rebooting) has given me the ALSA options back. That’s all I need
for anyone else in the same boat using Intrepid/Jaunty/Karmic, from the terminal:
sudo aptitude safe-upgrade
then
sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio
Then reboot. You should have your ALSA settings in SKYPE V2.1 Beta
Hello Skype Community,
I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 with Ubuntu 9.04, 32bit, with Skype 2.0.0.72 installed. When I run the “Video Devices” “Test”, I get green grained lines all over. My usb cam lights up which means the OS is detecting it.
Can some one please help me with this?
Thanks!
Hmmmm hello. I installed the new beta version on my computer, Ubuntu 9.04.
I’m happy to finally be able to edit my message, thanks^^
I only have 3 problems.
1- I cant hear the other side in a voice call
2- the other side can’t here me
3- I wanted to un-install this version but I cant. I don’t find the way.
In version 2.0 everything worked right. in the beginning I had the same one and two problems on 2.0 version but I could solve it by changing the sounds’ options. On version 2.1 I cant change it. There is no other option then that pulseaudio, which non of my microphones work on…..
I want to have Skype 2.0 back only because I cant hear and cant to be heard eventually, but I don’t know how. When I press on the file named “skype-debian_2.0.0.72-1_i386” I get a message “Error: A later version is already installed”.
Please help me to un-install 2.1 beta version. (I loved it very much, but most of the time I’m talking on Skype, not typing…)
thank you for building Skype for Linux:)
Shay-li
@samirsajana
Why don’t you try skype beta 2.1. That version worked a lot better on my Dell inspiron 15 with Jaunty 64bit.
@sai147
If you installed skype beta using the deb file you should just be able to uninstall in using the “synaptic package manager” on ubuntu and then just install the old version.
Have you opened the volume control on ubuntu and made sure that all the mixer levels are turned up. I found that when I allowed skype to automatically adjust the mixer levels it kept turning them right down. So I switched off this option under skype settings.
Can you tell me what’s happened to the CentOS/RHEL versions please? I’m running RHEL5 and from the looks of things I’m not going to be able to upgrade.
I tried it @sai147. Still same green lines, when I do a video device test.
@effzee25 > 5.As reported by another poster, Skype 2.1 seems to play fine with ALSA and does not need PulseAudio. Are there any benefits to using PulseAudio for Skype?
Yes, there are some benefits, for example easy re-routing of skype audio to an appropriate device, saving appropriate volume for this device and auto-pausing of audio/video players when skype call is being made.
> It’s open source guys – why don’t you take a look-see at how they do it?
We cannot look at GPL code for obvious reasons. So called “open source” is not always very open.
> Could you post up which versions of QT you have successfully tested this version with?
I’m running on Qt 4.5.2 without any problems.
@gsuveg Try removing or completely disabling pulseaudio on the netbook, might help not only with skype, but with overall audio latencies.
@scfarley OSS will be back later, and specifically i’m aiming for an universal build that would work on fbsd as well as on linux (and might work on solaris as well, in emulation).
@r.piasek Do you have 32-bit pulse libraries?
@genki-adrian There’s public JIRA, but I think our QA guys still didn’t clean up all the 2.0 bugs reported there, so filing more is kinda pointless there, forum threads provide at least some collection points for now. Also, as I see feedback is mostly positive with only several problems with 64 bits (unsurprisingly) and video cam drivers here and there.
Everybody who has issues with audio, please take a look at the next post here, in explains some problems and suggests workarounds.
@berkus:
Thanks for your reply. I could get Skype 2.1 running with ALSA on Debian Squeeze amd64 with the tips mentioned above to delete the pulseaudio stuff in /usr/lib32 and running ldconfig.
However, I cannot get it to work with pulseaudio on Ubuntu 9.10. The sounds works until I call someone, at this point sound is muted and I cannot close Skype without kill -9 anymore. But I blame Ubuntu for that, they are using a beta version of pulseaudio (0.9.16) in Ubuntu 9.10. Hope they will downgrade before release or this gets fixed in pulseaudio soon.
Adrian
@berkus:
Very good! Thanks for the Updates page–sounds like a FAQ. The additional Pulse tips were especially good. Now if only I spoke Russian…
Bug report/feature request? Make Skype respect the windowmanager size advice upon startup. My skype seems to respect position, but is always about 240×505 or so (Skype static 2.1.0.47, Debian Sid, Sawfish 1.3.5.2 (not that you should have to support every window manager out there, but I assume they all do things similarly… of course this _is_ Linux…), looking for Class “Skype/skype”). It looks like Skype might start up at one size (which may respect the WM’s hints for all I can tell…?) and then very quickly resize, losing the info? A great alternative might be to remember the size of the window at shutdown and to restore that.
Another startup annoyance: sometimes I’ll minimise Skype rather than closing it. Then when I start it, it pops up saying “Another Skype instance may exist”. That’s great, but if I now close both, and start Skype again, it’s lost the fact that I want it to remember me and log me in. My favourite choice for an alternative would be to kick off older instances or to send chats/calls to all instances–whenever I log in, all chats/calls go to the Skype most recently started or to all of them, etc. This would be especially handy if I have Skype at work and at home (or several virtual machines etc), and I miss calls because they’re going to where I’m not.
Thanks!
-Ben
Skype 2.1 is absolutely terrible. The second i installed it everything stopped working. My mic, my speakers and all my sound applications. After i rebooted i found that it ONLY recognizes pulseaudio, so i cant use my ALSA headset. Ive been lookin all over the internet for a downgrade but couldnt find one. Does anyone know where i can fin Skype 2.0?