Posted 06 Nov 2009 — by Arun
Category Ubuntu
With Ubuntu 9.10, based on my experience, sounds work at the same time for multiple devices. If you have Ubuntu 9.10 and Skype 2.1 beta, all you have to do to get the microphone to work is, right click on the volume icon in the top panel next to the date & time, select preferences, click on the input tab, uncheck the mute option next to input volume, if it’s checked. Now talk over the microphone and see if there are any movements in the bars next to input level. If not, click on the connector option and try with other options available there. For me, the default option and Microphone 1 didn’t work. Microphone 2 worked. You’ll see the movement in the vertical bars next to input level. Once you get that working, Skype should work fine.
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Posted 03 Nov 2009 — by Arun
Category Ubuntu
Here is the quick summary of what I like (some dislikes) in Ubuntu 9.10.
- Webcam video quality is very good. Video quality was bad in the last 2 versions of Ubuntu, but it’s back to normal.
- Pulse audio works with multiple sound devices without installing new packages.
- Skype 2.1 beta sound and video worked very good (It didn’t work in the previous version of Ubuntu).
- Empathy IM provides voice and video chat with GTalk, MSN users which is good. Empathy refused to start after a day or two. Not sure why, but I had to reinstall Ubuntu for a different problem and Empathy is working fine. Will watch it for few days.
- Boot process is faster than Ubuntu 9.04.
- Login process is longer than Ubuntu 9.04. I think they moved some stuff from boot to login time.
- Shutdown is lightning fast.
- Boot logo doesn’t show any progress bar, so you won’t know how far the boot process has progressed. It boots pretty fast, so it may not be a big deal.
- New icon theme is very good. It shows thumbnails inside each directory’s icon if there are files present.
- Banshee didn’t recognize my iPod.
I will write more about my experience as I use it. Based on my experience in the past couple of days, I would say Ubuntu has improved a lot in terms of hardware support and usability. Continue the good work.
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Posted 10 Sep 2009 — by Arun
Category Ubuntu
You might have read my earlier blog about Skype 2.1 beta for Linux. I installed Skype 2.1 beta in my desktop under Ubuntu 9.04. I initially installed it over the current stable release. When I checked the video didn’t work. I got a green garbage. I uninstalled Skype completely and tried again. The result was the same, so I uninstalled it again, removed “.skype” directory and installed it again and the result didn’t change. There is a thread on Video issues in Skype 2.1 beta. Some people got it to work by using manual workaround, but I would prefer it working out of the box. I hope Skype team would fix the issue soon.
Technorati Tags: Skype 2.1, Ubuntu, Video
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Posted 01 Sep 2009 — by Arun
Category Linux
Seventeen months after releasing Skype 2.0 for Linux, the Skype team has released a beta version of Skype 2.1. According to Skype, Skype 2.1 beta adds support to high quality video and super wideband audio that are being used in the Windows and Mac versions. As everyone knows, Skype is quite slow in adding features to Linux version, but the good thing is, they didn’t abandon it.
Here are the new features in Skype 2.1 in Linux:
- Skype’s SILK codec for outstanding sound quality
- High Quality Video
- PulseAudio
- Send SMS messages
- Organise your contacts with contact groups
- Improvements to chat (typing indicator, new emoticons and message editing)
You can download Skype 2.1 beta from here. I haven’t tried the beta version yet. I have already mentioned about Ubuntu’s webcam issues (here, here etc)starting with Ubuntu 8.10. The video quality is pretty bad starting with Ubuntu 8.10 and Ubuntu now recognizes the webcams as generic ones rather than by the camera name. I’m not sure if the fine tuning on Skype side is going to help any better or not. I have to install and check. I hope the video quality is better, so I don’t have to boot into Windows for webcam chat.
Technorati Tags: Skype 2.1, Ubuntu, Linux, Webcam, PulseAudio, SILK, SMS
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