Skype 'musings' & related stuff...

[rockedge]

the main problem is running Skype as root.

The people over at micropuppet have made the code for skype unable to be started with --no-chrome-sandbox which used to work or any other work around that I have tried. Search engine the issue and you'll see the attempts.

So I revert back to the last newer version that will run as root.

This also has become a problem in WeeDog as well. The Void Linux package manager installs the latest skype but since WeeDog setups I made run as root I have no joy running Skype. So also there I go back to an older version

I do not like to be forced by know-it-all's to not use root.....I run as root with no fear and NEVER had an issue to this very moment running as root

Skype version 8.50.0.38 works well still in Bionic64.

I am going to use your suggestion Mike which looks like a great way to start skype with the run-as-spot wrapper!

**

[rockedge]

Nice!!

Hello Mike...I don't know why I did not think of using run-as-spot before but I used your suggestion with the latest preview version of Skype and it started and works great.

Thanks for the tip!

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, rockedge.

Ah, you know me by now; if there's an easy, simple way of doing summat, it's what I prefer to go with. We get so used to thinking of everything we do in 'complex' terms, we tend to forget to try the simple things first.....

I always start stuff like this from the terminal to begin with (I keep remembering all the different hassles the early 'beta' versions of SkypeforLinux presented us with, a couple of years ago.) When it just kept returning to the prompt, I immediately suspected permissions, since it's happening with pretty much everything else these days!

'Run-as-spot' worked perfectly for me, so I figured I'd put together a simple MenuEntry 'overwrite' for it; should work for everybody else, too.

That start script in /usr/bin is a bloody nightmare; I know it's fairly 'standard' as far as mainstream distros are concerned, but TBH, most of it is totally unnecessary.....and anyway, we're used to 'hacking' things to get 'em running in Puppy, aren't we?

I'm like you; there's no end of perfectly good, open-source replacements for Skype that I'd be more than happy to use instead.....but when everyone you know refuses to use anything other than Skype, it doesn't leave you a lot of choice..! I'm just glad the current versions seem to be fairly well 'sorted' at long last.

-------------------------------

Hang on to the Menu 'overwrite' .pet, 'cos you'll need to re-install it each time you upgrade Skype.


Mike.

[rockedge]

Hi Mike,

Good stuff...so far just the small script I put into /root/my-applications/bin is doing the trick starting the latest Skype. Which I don't think will be affected.

I have the PET and will keep it stored in case I need it!

I still use it since my world wide connections are still using skype as well.

[Mike Walsh]

Just some info:-

Have just this moment installed the 'current' version of this in Bionicpup64 - 8.57.76.109. I'm noticing a degree of 'sluggishness' & 'hesitation' with this version.....and this is on the new, modern hardware. God knows what it'd be like on the old Compaq!

Apart from that, everything appears to be still functional, though I can't say as I'm keen on MyCrudSoft having removed the ability to 'maximize' the app. It's now either 'fullscreen' (via F11 - covering the tray up), or a smallish window off to one side of the screen.

Ah, well; I guess I shouldn't complain. It does still work.....


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Now on 8.59.76.11.....and 'maximize/minimize' is working correctly again!

(Thank Christ for small mercies, eh?)


Mike.

[gabtech]

Hello people,

I can not find Oscar's skype fot tahr64.

[Mike Walsh]

Hello people,

I can not find Oscar's skype fot tahr64.

@ gabtech:-

You probably won't, either. Oscar periodically builds experimental 'test' packages, and, I think, depending on the amount of interest any given package receives - i.e., how many people download it - it may stay up for a long time, or it may be removed after only a short while.

I'm guessing that for this particular package, it was the latter; at any rate, it's been removed. Or Oscar may have simply removed it for the simple reason that it's now an ancient package.....not in terms of how old it actually is, more in terms of how many 'upgrades' there's been since.

Like, somewhere in excess of 60 newer versions, if I don't miss my guess.....and we all know how prone M$ are to just dropping support for things, simply on a whim.

Like Oscar, even I periodically review & prune the contents of my cloud hosting a/cs.....there's a limit to how much storage space you get, before having to start paying for it.


Mike.

[OscarTalks]

Yeah, I haven't done any experimenting with Skype for quite some time and don't have any uploaded at the moment. The most recent version I have locally is 8.16.x which obviously is very outdated so no point offering that. Other packages (or instructions on how to adapt for Puppy) can be found if you hunt around I believe.

[fredx181]

Just in case it's useful for anyone, here's (older) skype version 8.34 that can run as root.

Fred

[Mike Walsh]

Afternoon, boys & girls. Just a quick update for y'all.

The latest version of Skype - 8.59.76.26 - released, um, just yesterday (*shakes head.....again!!*), will run OOTB in Bionicpup64.

After a wee bit of experimentation, it appears it will run under Xenialpup64, but you'll need to 'borrow' libsecret from Bionicpup64; looks like they've compiled it with a slightly newer version, and Xenial's default one is now just a bit too old.

I'm not going into a 'rant' here, but I wish to Christ MyCrudSoft would quit suppressing the terminal output from these Electron Chromium-based packages. It often proves very helpful when running any of the Chromium-based browsers, because it's essentially an ongoing, 'real-time' debug report all the time the things are running.

MyCrudSoft once again demonstrating what a bunch of all-round 'control freaks' they are...... I'm not saying there aren't plenty of clever folks over on the 'dark side', but it's not beyond the majority of Linux users to do a bit of detective work and track down updated dependencies if, as & when necessary. Like this, it's left down to guesswork; I had the bright idea of trying a newer version of libsecret, seeing as it's been mentioned so often as the prime suspect over the last year.....

As it happens, it turns out my guess was right!


Mike.

[rockedge]

Hello Mike,

Micropuppets are a devious bunch.

I can't even keep up with the fast rate of updates for Skype. I think they are scrambling because they know they've blown it and lost to the new comer Zoom. One would think such "great" programmers would be allowed to create programs so lean and mean our heads would spin......but nooooo......not happening, we get bloat ware, dubious tracking and sluggish operating junk code.

I have used Skype since the beginning and I really appreciated it having family spread across the planet, so I stick with it...but all the tricks necessary to keep it running are a noticeable drag...a real buzz kill. Although I'll be the first to admit it is a sort of a thrill when it starts up and presents the login screen.

Question....do you have persistence with the Skype profile and staying logged in after a restart of Skype? I so far have not successfully gotten the profile to be saved so I need to login every time I start skype.

I am really happy that the run-as-spot makes it easy to run.

[fredx181]

Question....do you have persistence with the Skype profile and staying logged in after a restart of Skype? I so far have not successfully gotten the profile to be saved so I need to login every time I start skype.

Yes, automatic login is problematic, I use older Skype version on Stretchdog and have gnome-keyring installed which makes autologin working, but with newest Skype I could not figure out how.

Fred

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, rockedge.

No, I haven't bothered with auto-login, TBH. I don't use it that often - an hour-long chat with my sister last night, and the same with my mate tuxtoo a couple of weeks ago is the most I've used it for months!

However; I've had my MyCrudSoft a/c for a very long time, and despite all the transitions it's been through over the last couple of decades, my username & password (although certainly not easy to guess, easy for me to remember) are pretty much 'burned-in' to my memory by now. I doubt I could forget 'em if I tried.....

If the web-app had the functionality of the desktop client, I'd use that instead - and LastPass would do the honours for me - but it's not got video-calling.....only chat messaging. Which is a bugger, right enough, 'cos if you use the web-app running under Microsoft Edge (the Windoze version, of course!), video-calling is present & correct.

I have absolutely NO faith that the promised Linux version of Edge, even if any of us were daft enough to use it, would offer the same.....


Mike.

[Makoto]

So you're saying that if it's used under Edge, the web version does have video capability? If that's the case, it sounds like it's excluding features from 'older' browsers again... a useragent string from a recent version of Edge (not Chrome, if Microsoft and Google are still having that 'spat') would probably do the trick, as opposed to the Chrome useragent string I haven't changed since we first got it working.

Edit: Try this one: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.140 Safari/537.36 Edge/17.17134 (the latest listed here.
They have a 'latest' page (What is the latest user agent for Edge? - WhatIsMyBrowser.com) that claims it's Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.149 Safari/537.36 Edge/80.0.361.62 instead, though. (Note that that page leaves out the last 'e' on the 'Edge' in the string as well...))

[Mike Walsh]

@ Makoto:-

Mm....nah. I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as that.

I believe that MyCrudSoft have set things up so that if the web-server for the Skype web-app page is accessed by the Microsoft version of Edge (in their own, proprietary coding, and no doubt making use of all sorts of proprietary 'checks & balances' in addition to the presence of a 'proper' user-agent string), then it will serve up a version of the web-app tailored for their own browser, with several additional features over & above those coded into the 'generic' version.....which is what everybody else gets.

I know these buggers of old, Makoto. You don't honestly think they're not wise to the 'user-agent' string by now, do you? No, they're going to put as many extra checks in as they can; as many as they feel necessary to ensure that only Windoze users - and only those using the M$-approved apps, at that - will be able to access all the spiffy, extra features.

That's been my opinion for long enough. I stick by it, 'cos where M$ are concerned, I won't put anything past 'em. They may be professing love for Linux, and be making all sorts of demonstrations of just how much they've changed, but a leopard doesn't change its spots. They may not openly be slagging Linux off these days, but, just like Google, they're making as much use of the community's open-source code as they feel they have a right to.....while at the same time, still managing to short-change the very community where they got that code from at every possible turn.

You get wise to the 'scenery' - and what's going on - after several trips around the block, mate.


Mike.

[Makoto]

Have you tried it, though?

The login area seems to work, but it always errors out while I try to connect using my old Skype ID. Maybe you'd have better luck.

(Hey, I'd have preferred they never shut down the MSN Messenger service and kept that around as an alternative, but that was the first step in how MS tries to force you to update to the 'latest and greatest' just for Skype's sake. And Office. And... well, Windows.

So, yeah, I know how Microsoft handles it, but I'm not entirely ready to write off using other browsers in the web client just yet.)

[Mike Walsh]

Have you tried it, though?

Not yet. I'm wondering which browser would be best to try it in; Palemoon's a 'non-starter' because it doesn't support WebRTC, which is a must for this kind of thing, apparently.

Although being mainly a user of the Chromium-based browsers, I don't think you can edit things like you can in Firefox, so I guess that's what it will have to be.

Makoto, do me a wee favour, would you? Link me to your post where you detailed the steps for adding the exception into Firefox's settings, please; I've been searching for a while, but can't remember which thread it was in..!

I'll give that a try in Quantum, and see what happens. Well; that's the plan, anyway...


Mike.

[Makoto]

Hmm. That would probably explain why I was having problems connecting - I was doing it in Palemoon.

Well, the method to do it was to go into about:config, and create the key, general.useragent.override.skype.com, if it doesn't already exist. Set it to "String", and then you'll be able to set it to whatever useragent string you want to use.

I say 'was,' because I don't know if Firefox is currently honoring those particular site overrides - I tried going to the web version of Skype after setting it, and it would only give me the unsupported browser page. It works under Palemoon, but...

Maybe one of the useragent-changing extensions would work, I don't know. If you try it, make sure to backup your original useragent string, of course.

[Mike Walsh]

The current release (today) of 8.61.76.36 appears to have had some changes made, but as per usual with M$, no debug info in the terminal.

The last 3 or 4 releases have refused to run for me in Bionicpup64, but this one has now begun behaving itself again. Still runs fine under Xenialpup64, but where it was running in jrb's Quirky64 April 7.0.1 'lite', it has now, sadly, thrown in the towel. I'm not really surprised at this, since 7.0.1 is around the same vintage as Tahrpup64.....and it's getting so's quite a number of things won't run properly in that, either.

Just keeping y'all up-to-date!


Mike.