Problems with Skype...

[NEO117]

Hey people. I've been using Mint and I love it however I still get this crackling sound everytime I use skype. I can hear them just fine but when I talk it's all crackly and poor quality. This doesn't happen on Windows btw. I got rid of Pulse audio and let Skype use ALSA instead but to no avail, I still get the same issues. Is there any fix for this? Would you reccomend using OSS? Thanks for any help.

[libssd]

Count yourself lucky to have any sound at all. Skype for Linux sucks.

[NEO117]

Haha true... Would you reccomend emulating through Wine?

[electroken]

I have used Skype on linux for years now. Most of the time on Linux Mint and I am now using version 17.3 as I have not updated to the latest version yet.
I have had no issues of any importance until about 5 days ago when I could not launch Skype at all. It would load as usual and ask for my user name and password, but then just disappear and the program did not run. I deleted Skype using the software manager and re-installed it and was told at the time I had the latest version, but it will not load and run now. I was told the last time I was using Skype on my Linux machine that Skype had been out of date and removed from running on Linux some time in July 2017. I cannot recall the exact day it said, but the next time I went to run Skype it would not run.
What gives?
Has the evil Microsoft made this happen since it now owns Skype? It would surely not surprise me any to learn that it had. So is there any way to have Skype run on my linux computer or do I chalk this up to another failure to encourage me to stay with linux. I just want to be able to stay here and use a much more stable system, but i also want to be able to run some of the things I need to have run in my daily routine and one of them is Skype as I use it to talk to my friend in New Zealand almost every day.

I am grateful that i can use VLC player and that LibreOffice runs ok for me. Also would like to know why no one in the linux community who has the ability to do so, wont update nero linux for those of us who came over from windows and really liked the way it worked. There are some programs on linux that almost work as well, but the lack of codecs is now a problem for dealing with audio and especially video on linux now days. I am sure you all know what I mean. Cant it be settled some how or is it that either linux is going to go away or windows is going to go away? I think there is room for both, especially when windows acts like a decoy for most of the hacking trouble and saves me some grief I think.

It would be nice to see some more done to help us former windows users with keeping up with a easy-to-use desktop gui. Already we have seen where a marked change in the form and layout of the desktop had millions of angry windows users with the change from win7 to win8 etc, but then linux did it also and left a lot of converts wondering why they bothered to change over or try to do so. Is it so impossible to make a gui which can function almost identically with each change so that those of us who do not have degrees in computer science or rise to the level of an IT expert to use the computer with some kind of ease?

Had to get it all off my chest, but my main concern is using Skype or something compatible on my linux machine. Please!

[electroken]

I found a solution to this problem.
If you have this happening and your package manager declares you have the latest version and it is on 4.3 or something, it is not the latest. But it seems my mint17.3 package manager is not doing this correctly. I went to the skype site and downloaded I think a version like 8.2 for linux. I ran it via the package installer and it now runs fine. It is definitely NOT the version I was running earlier this week. So the only solution may be to go to the skype site and download and install that one.
I am not good at command line but it was simple to do and I did not have to actually go into the command line to do it.
The download only asked me to type in my password and it all ran via dpkg and works fine now.

I can tell you this verson is Ver 8.10.0.4 and is NOT the one which the package manager for linux mint 17.3 is installing. I have the latest updates for mint 17.3 installed as of this last week but still it wants to only install that old version and not the one required. This should be fixed or you will have more people like me having issues.

[tdockery97]

Very odd. I am using Mint 18.2 KDE and skype version is 4.3.0.37 and it works perfectly. I use it several times a day, both text and video chat.

[Linux-Bill]

18.2 here and using 4.3.0.37 several times a week with no issues.