Ho scoperto che l’offerta del telefonino INQ di Tre, in pratica il nuovo sostituto dello Skypephone, mi permette di usare Skype anche nelle altre nazioni servite da Tre senza pagare roaming o altre tariffe aggiuntive.
In pratica l’offerta è valida dovunque sul globo terraqueo ci sia un’antenna Tre. Compresa Hong Kong.
Getting Skype working on my brand new Dell Studio XPS 1340 notebook under Ubuntu Jaunty was quite easy except for some minor but still annoying issues. Here you can find some quick suggestion.
On this kind of notebook, I would suggest you to install the 64 bit version of Ubuntu Jaunty: it is faster and it can easily use all the RAM you have installed (4GB in my case). So, if you follow my suggestion and choose the 64nbit install, you’ll need some extra work to do to install Skype, since this software for Linux is only available in 32 bit flavour. The extra work consists in installing a few more packages to get a 32bit compatibility layer. Those packages are also needed for many other 32bit only software, like Google Earth. The fastest way to install the needed packages is by opening a console and typing:
sudo apt-get install -y util-linux ia32-libs lib32asound2
If you are reading this article from your Jaunty box, it will be even easier: just click here and follow the instructions on the screen.
At this point you should be ready to install the Skype package. You can download it from the Skype download page, or from this direct link, save it on the desktop and than double click on the file and install.
Now the Skype is almost ready to work. Start it (you can find it in the Internet menu) and insert username and password. Are you ready to make your first call? No, you are not. In fact if you try you will get some audio error: Skype audio section is not configured correctly on this computer.
Right click on the Skype icon in the icon tray (on the top panel, if you are running Gnome). Now choose “Options“.
In the Options Window go to the “Sound Devices” section, and make sure you have this settings:
I also suggest you to not allow Skype to automatically adjust your mixer levels. This is mainly because Skype is easy to lower the volume on the mic (e.g. for a sudden strong noise) but it is not as easy when the volume needs to be a little higher.
To adjust the volume of your integrated mic, go to the volume applet in the icon tray, right click on it and choose “Open Volume Control“.
In the Volume Control window, go to the “Recording” tab, and press the “Preferences” button. Set the “Capture” on. This is necessary since the “Mic Mixer” in the Recording tab is actually the external mic you can plug in the front of the computer. The integrated mic is controlled by the “Capture” mixer level.
Now you can close all the extra windows you opened and return to Skype. You are ready to make your first Skype call from Ubuntu Jaunty on the Dell Studio XPS 13 notebook.
I bought a new webcam, a Logitech E 3500 and it works great on Skype. Unfortunately, on my Ubuntu Intrepid box, Cheese and other GStreamer based programs are not able to make the webcam work.
At the beginning, since it was working with Skype and not working with GStreamer, it seemed a GStreamer bug. It is not. It is a bug with the uvcvideo module loaded in the kernel. As soon as you compile the SVN version of uvcvideo the webcam start working with all the programs which can interface with Video4Linux2.
Here a few steps to make it working.
First of all: you need to install some build tools and the kernel headers:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential subversion
Create a folder on which you will work (let’s say it’s in your home, but you can change it):
mkdir ~/uvcvideo
cd ~/uvcvideo
Now download the latest source from the SVN server:
svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk
cd trunk
and build it:
make
Now you are ready to load the brand-new module, but first unload the old one:
sudo rmmod uvcvideo
sudo insmod ./uvcvideo.ko
Now start Cheese and smile! In my case the resolution selection is still not working, but that’s a minor problem.
Please note that now you are using a module that is hand-loaded. If you want your kernel to load the new uvcvideo module automatically instead of the old one, enter the following commands:
sudo cp ./uvcvideo.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/video/uvc/uvcvideo.ko
sudo rmmod uvcvideo
sudo modprobe uvcvideo
This will overwrite the old module. The classic make install won’t work, since it will install the module in a different folder from the default tree of the kernel in Ubuntu Intrepid.
Personally I hope Ubuntu will soon provide a correct patch: even this worked for me, I don’t really like quick&dirty ways
Dopo vari mesi di beta testing (e devo ammettere che l’ultima beta era molto stabile) è stata rilasciata la versione 1.4 del client Skype per Linux.
Nella pagina di download sono disponibili i pacchetti per diverse distribuzioni tra cui Ubuntu Feisty 7.04¹, Debian Etch, Fedora 6 e 7², OpenSUSE 10 e seguenti, Mandriva e non solo. Non mancano anche i pacchetti generici, con e senza le librerie QT.
Le novità generali della 1.4 sono un’interfaccia completamente ridisegnata e basata sulle librerie QT 4.2 (le stesse che userà KDE4). L’interfaccia è un elogio al minimalismo e all’ordine. Non so come sia quella per Mac, ma è decisamente più pulita ed efficiente di quella per Windows.
Un grosso passo in avanti è stato fatto per la stabilità e la qualità della chiamata. Usandolo parecchio mi sono accorto dei notevoli miglioramenti in questo senso: la versione 1.3 andava parecchio male sul mio onesto Duron @ 700MHz, mentre la 1.4, già da alcune beta fa, ha dimostratato come quei problemi fossero stati risolti.
Mancano molte altre caratteristiche da tempo presenti nei client per le altre piattaforme, ma Skype è principalmente un prodotto per il VOIP, e questa parte del suo lavoro la fa maledettamente bene.
Certo, la più grande mancanza è il video, ma c’è da fare una considerazione. Quante sono le webcam che funzionano bene su Linux? Anche Dell, che pure sta facendo un lavoraccio, ancora non presenta nessuna macchina con webcam integrata (mi pare che ci siano i Dell con la webcam, giusto? È che quando vedo scritto Windows fuggo).
Nel blog di Skype per Linux viene precisato che Skype 1.4 deve essere considerato una base su cui costruire tutti gli altri servizi e componenti già disponibili per gli altri OS. Non so voi, ma io sono fiducioso.
[1]: Lo screenshot sulla pagina di download è proprio fatto su Ubuntu.
[2]: Da notare la precisione: Fedora Core 6 e Fedora 7.
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