After more than 3 years in development Skype for Linux has shaken off its beta tag and made a substantial new release.

Bumping the app version from 2.2 all the way to 4.0, Skype have nicknamed the release ‘Four Rooms for Improvement,’ because, they say, that this release ‘finally [fills] the gap with our other desktop clients and we are now making many of the latest Skype features, as well as a lot of UI improvements, available to our penguin lovers.’

This release marks only the second update to the Linux client in a year. The previous update, made last month, sought to resolve a minor bug issue in the static package.

With this release Skype will likely hope that rumours of the applications demise on Linux are finally put to rest.

New in Skype 4.0

If you’ve used a relatively recent version of Skype on Mac or Windows at some point in the last two years then the majority of what’s new won’t seem that, well, new.

But what has specifically has changed in the Linux client?

New Conversation and call views (see gallery)

Improved audio and video Quality

Additional Web Cam Support

improved chat synchronisation

New status icons and emoticons

“Tabbed” conversations

Download

Skype for Linux 4.0 can be download from the official Skype website. The version available in the Ubuntu Software Center partner repositories is, for the time being, out of date.

Also note that to install Skype 4.0 you will have to first uninstall Skype 2.2 to avoid package conflicts.

[button size=”medium” color=”blue” url=”http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux/”] Download Skype for Linux 4.0 [/button]

Today also sees updates released for Skype’s Mac and Windows clients, bumping them up to version 5.8 and 5.10 respectively.