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MS was always going to kill Skype once they purchased it. One way or another. I remember how it ceased working on Linux once they bought it but I'm not sure w

MS was always going to kill Skype once they purchased it. One way or another. I remember how it ceased working on Linux once they bought it but I'm not sure whether it had to do with moving to centralised servers or if it had been moved from P2P long before.

chrismorgan 2y ago
> I remember how it ceased working on Linux once they bought it I can’t speak for long ago, if that’s what you’re referring to, but the last two generations of the Skype client have run just fine on Linux. I’ve been using it for the last five years. My only real annoyance with it (that is, the Linux client rather than Skype problems in general, which have steadily got worse) is that it relies on an org.freedesktop.secrets implementation (e.g. gnome-keyring, kwallet) to stay logged in, and so because I stubbornly don’t have such a thing (I have no other software that wants such a thing, and I use Sway so anything will be poorly-integrated), I have to log in every time it restarts. And it’s really slow to start, badly-implemented web tech UI; twenty seconds to start and show the normal logged-in start screen, then it decides you’ve been signed out and takes you back to the login screen… all up, it tends to take almost a minute to start, including typing password. Except that some time in the last couple of months it broke further, and now freezes up for a minute before taking you to the login screen, in which it also requires you to enter username, not just password. So now it’s more like a solid two minutes of startup time, if you’re paying attention to it.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  That all sounds like an issue with your particular setup more than with Skype. Just because that isn't how the Linux app works for most people at all.
  - chrismorgan 2y ago
    Which thing? Relying on keychain to stay logged in, or bad startup performance, or the most recent minute-long freeze? GNOME/KDE users should have a keychain running, so it won’t affect them. It’ll only affect people who roll their own stack a bit more. I don’t object to it using the keychain if it’s available, but refusing to keep you logged in if it’s absent is bad. Nothing else acts like that.
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      I'm saying I think all the issues you are reporting, including the lag times and such, seem specific to your setup, maybe Sway specifically or Wayland. I don't use Gnome or KDE or have any keychain stuff installed, I run Alpine with Awesome, and haven't experienced the same issues you have.
- isaacremuant 2y ago
  Interesting. Thanks for the correction. Maybe I just dropped it then and never picked it back up. I remember the experience worsening and it was probably the time when other alternatives were propping up so I never went back to it.
- chrismorgan 2y ago
  Update: I just gave up and uninstalled skypeforlinux-bin. I’m fed up with it. After taking a few minutes to log in (if the window isn’t visible, it doesn’t progress much through logging out and in and all), it looked like everything was fine, but didn’t show contact presence status or display incoming calls, which is something I’ve seen happen once or twice, but those times it sorted itself out after a few minutes, whereas this time it hadn’t after ten minutes, and I’m just done with it. I only used it once a week anyway. Not sure if this is actual Linux client breakage, or bugs in the web tech part of the stack, or some combination. So for the last while until my family switches to something else, I’ll stick with Skype for Android, which is… not completely broken. But all their stuff is falling apart. In the last few months, Skype for Android stopped receiving calls unless the app is open (or perhaps been opened recently, not sure). Maybe Android background app killing is partly to blame, but nothing else that acts like a dialler has trouble. Everyone keeps on changing their software and making it worse. :-(

chrismorgan 2y ago

> I remember how it ceased working on Linux once they bought it I can’t speak for long ago, if that’s what you’re referring to, but the last two generations of the Skype client have run just fine on Linux. I’ve been using it for the last five years. My only real annoyance with it (that is, the Linux client rather than Skype problems in general, which have steadily got worse) is that it relies on an org.freedesktop.secrets implementation (e.g. gnome-keyring, kwallet) to stay logged in, and so because I stubbornly don’t have such a thing (I have no other software that wants such a thing, and I use Sway so anything will be poorly-integrated), I have to log in every time it restarts. And it’s really slow to start, badly-implemented web tech UI; twenty seconds to start and show the normal logged-in start screen, then it decides you’ve been signed out and takes you back to the login screen… all up, it tends to take almost a minute to start, including typing password. Except that some time in the last couple of months it broke further, and now freezes up for a minute before taking you to the login screen, in which it also requires you to enter username, not just password. So now it’s more like a solid two minutes of startup time, if you’re paying attention to it.

kennysoona 2y ago
That all sounds like an issue with your particular setup more than with Skype. Just because that isn't how the Linux app works for most people at all.
- chrismorgan 2y ago
  Which thing? Relying on keychain to stay logged in, or bad startup performance, or the most recent minute-long freeze? GNOME/KDE users should have a keychain running, so it won’t affect them. It’ll only affect people who roll their own stack a bit more. I don’t object to it using the keychain if it’s available, but refusing to keep you logged in if it’s absent is bad. Nothing else acts like that.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    I'm saying I think all the issues you are reporting, including the lag times and such, seem specific to your setup, maybe Sway specifically or Wayland. I don't use Gnome or KDE or have any keychain stuff installed, I run Alpine with Awesome, and haven't experienced the same issues you have.
isaacremuant 2y ago
Interesting. Thanks for the correction. Maybe I just dropped it then and never picked it back up. I remember the experience worsening and it was probably the time when other alternatives were propping up so I never went back to it.
chrismorgan 2y ago
Update: I just gave up and uninstalled skypeforlinux-bin. I’m fed up with it. After taking a few minutes to log in (if the window isn’t visible, it doesn’t progress much through logging out and in and all), it looked like everything was fine, but didn’t show contact presence status or display incoming calls, which is something I’ve seen happen once or twice, but those times it sorted itself out after a few minutes, whereas this time it hadn’t after ten minutes, and I’m just done with it. I only used it once a week anyway. Not sure if this is actual Linux client breakage, or bugs in the web tech part of the stack, or some combination. So for the last while until my family switches to something else, I’ll stick with Skype for Android, which is… not completely broken. But all their stuff is falling apart. In the last few months, Skype for Android stopped receiving calls unless the app is open (or perhaps been opened recently, not sure). Maybe Android background app killing is partly to blame, but nothing else that acts like a dialler has trouble. Everyone keeps on changing their software and making it worse. :-(