There's good news about Skype for Linux 1.4 Alpha from Raul on Skype's Garage blog.

• Audio quality improvements, on par with Windows 3.2 and Mac 2.6.
• More reliable code, thanks to a major rewrite building on Trolltech's Qt 4.2.
• Better device detection
• ALSA plugins support
• UI improvements for file transfer and general layout

This Alpha release is far from done. It has 20 substantial issues affecting audio, chats, contact lists, history, notifications, file transfers, and option settings. Entire features are missing, including contact list groups, creating new accounts, packaged versions and the whole Skype API.

This work is all straightforward. The hard stuff was the rewrite of the underlying framework and UI. I'm betting we'll see Skype's Linux builds follow Windows' by weeks instead of quarters now.

Get the October 2006 gold build if you want to use Skype on Linux. The developer page for Skype for Linux is a great resource. Read about previous progress in this post on February updates.