Tesco Internet Phone with Skype/Linux

I have been watching the price of the Tesco internet phone USB internet phone pack drop. It has now gone down to £9.98 so I bought one. I also bought their headset - a mono headset with a boom mike for £9.97. You both from Tesco on line.

My aim was to get get them working on my Sony Vaio PCG V505CP running Mandriva 2006 with Skype Voice over IP service.

First the headset. This has two stereo jack plugs and plugs in the audio sockets on the viao. When I tried this the performance of the mic was disapointing and when I called home it was hard to hear anything. It may work better with careful adjusting of the mixer settings but it easily went in to a feedback squeal.

The usb handset turns out to be a "Yealink Network Technology Ltd. VOIP USB Phone". A visual comparison confirms it looks the same as the "USB Hand Phone MODEL: USB-P1K" listed on the Yealink web site. The download page shows an RPM for Fedora Core 3 but that is just skype which is already installed. There is a zip file for SkypeMate for linux. Leaving SkypeMate aside for the moment

I plugged it in while running tail -f /var/log/messages and got this
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: usbcore: registered new driver snd-usb-audio
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: usbcore: registered new driver xpad
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: drivers/usb/input/xpad-core.c: driver for Xbox controllers with mouse emulation v0.1.4
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: usbcore: registered new driver audio
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: drivers/usb/class/audio.c: v1.0.0:USB Audio Class driver
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer udev[8939]: run_program: exec of program failed
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: usbcore: registered new driver hiddev
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: hiddev0: USB HID v1.00 Device [Yealink Network Technology Ltd. VOIP USB Phone ] on usb-0000:00:1d.0-1
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: usbcore: registered new driver usbhid
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer kernel: drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.01:USB HID core driver
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer udev[8962]: run_program: exec of program failed
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer pam_console.dev[8942]: Restoring console permissions for /dev/dsp1 /dev/sound/dsp1
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer pam_console.dev[8945]: Restoring console permissions for /dev/audio1 /dev/sound/audio1
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer pam_console.dev[8967]: Restoring console permissions for /dev/mixer1 /dev/sound/mixer1
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer pam_console.dev[8959]: Restoring console permissions for /dev/snd/pcmC1D0p
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer pam_console.dev[8971]: Restoring console permissions for /dev/snd/pcmC1D0c
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer udev[9007]: run_program: exec of program failed
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer pam_console.dev[9010]: Restoring console permissions for /dev/hiddev0
Aug 22 21:11:52 mycomputer pam_console.dev[9017]: Restoring console permissions for /dev/snd/controlC1

Humm.. not so sure about that "udev[8962]: run_program: exec of program failed", But the rest looks ok.

Now restarting skype (but not rebooting) tools>options>head/handsets lists two devices for Audio devices: calls /dev/dsp and /dev/dsp1. Selecting dsp1 and ringing my answering machine it works fine as an audio device. So far the green light comes on and it says VO IP-PHONE on the screen but the buttons don't do anything (except beep), so I had to dial using the screen or keyboard. Still its a start. Anyone got any further than that?

Later... Well I spoke for an hour to my colleague in the US and it worked fine. Now for the SkpeMate thing. Download and unzip. Also download the user manual. Up until now you just get VO IP-PHONE on the phone's screen. Now if you run SkypeMate from the desktop short cut (not from the command line it seems, or maybe not as root), you get the date and time on the screen. Now it works up to a point. You have to dial 0 for the initial +. It comes up as + on the computer screen and 0 on the phone (!). It sort of says that in the manual. Also the display doesnt scroll and didnt show the last digit I dialed on the phone. So it is best still to watch the computer screen. I was not able to scroll through my contacts list.

Overall still good value!