Video Chat Support with Skype 2 Beta on MacBook : Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy”
So I’m back with Ubuntu now after a week of testing the Fedora waters. Wow its nice to be back in the living of the “Just Works”! There were far too many things that didn’t work in Fedora.. too frustrating for me.
In any event, one of the first things that I tried setting up after getting back to Ubuntu is the Video Chat support for the new Linux client, which is now supported on the MacBook. When it was first released a month or so ago the MacBook hardware was not supported. Add a bug report and a little time, and we’re in business. It’s actually pretty easy to get going, so I’ll dive right in.
iSight Firmware
The one critical part that you need to get the camera supported in both Skype and Ekiga is the Apple USB Support Firmware, available as part of a default Apple OS X installation. You’ll either need access to your OS X partition, or get the file from the DVD somehow. (I don’t really want to get into how to try and pull it off the DVD, granted you need a copy of:
AppleUSBVideoSupport
Drop this file into the directory “/lib/firmware/$(uname -r)” and restart the machine. When it comes back up you’re camera should be supported. For more details see the community maintained Ubuntu on the MacBook wiki.
Skype 2 Beta for Linux – With Video!
Now that you’ve got the hardware supported head over to the Skype website and grab yourself a copy of the beta client for Linux. I’ve got a handy link for you right here:
Select the copy for Ubuntu. (I know its listed as Ubuntu 7.04, but it works just fine on Ubuntu 7.10 as well). Double click the saved .deb package, or open with Gdebi Installer and get it installed. Once you’re done you should instantly be able to enjoy video chat with all of your Skype using friends. Enjoy!
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At last the video support is coming! This is great news, soon we can actually have video conferences with the rest of the world.
Maybe this will encourage other open source projects to support video conferencing. Ekiga sure needs some healthy competition, and OpenWengo simply wants all my PC resources when doing video.
GizmoProject is also coming along with video, although no Linux version yet it should be available sometime soon.
And can you tell us how did you manage to get the mic recording to work ? because it doesn’t work for me :/
the microphone doesn’t work in skype and the camera doesn’t work either. the camera works in ekiga, I have a acer travelmate 8215wlmi. need help!!!
I agree, mic support is something entirely different from video, but I should think it’s more easily rectifiable, too. Any word on whether this video support carries over to Cheese, as well? (Cheese is a Photobooth-like application.)
how I got my microphone working…right click the speaker/volume icon, wander through recording settings, find mike 1 and mike 2, try checking the box which isn’t checked.
Nice! I ve been looking for the linux version for a while now.