192. Skype on Debian STABLE (updated for Skype 4.x)

Update 15/6/12: New Skype (4) out this morning. Screengrabs etc posted at the end.

This post came about from a question posted on the Debian forums.

Before you read, be aware of this:

* I don't have debian 6.05 installed on any physical system. They all run debian wheezy

* This guide was done in a virtualbox installation. For sound, I used a headset and USB-passthrough. 

Having said that, there's no reason this shouldn't work.

As my system, I used the same one I used here (i.e. a very slim install):

http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/ecce-in-virtual-machine-step-by-step.html

The advantage is that it's likely to a lot more barebones than a regular desktop debian install.

The disadvantage is that I don't know what's pulled in by default by debian 6.05.

Anyway, here's what I did:

1. Download and install  skype from skype.com

I selected the Debian 5 64 bit package which is gives you the skype-debian_2.2.0.35-1_amd64.deb file.

Install:

sudo dpkg -i skype-debian_2.2.0.35-1_amd64.deb 

Selecting previously deselected package skype.
(Reading database ... 53724 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking skype (from skype-debian_2.2.0.35-1_amd64.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of skype:
 skype depends on lib32stdc++6 (>= 4.1.1-21); however:
  Package lib32stdc++6 is not installed.
 skype depends on lib32asound2 (>> 1.0.14); however:
  Package lib32asound2 is not installed.
 skype depends on ia32-libs; however:
  Package ia32-libs is not installed.
 skype depends on lib32gcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1-21+ia32.libs.1.19); however:
  Package lib32gcc1 is not installed.
 skype depends on ia32-libs-gtk; however:
  Package ia32-libs-gtk is not installed.
dpkg: error processing skype (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 skype

That's fine. Now fix the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install -f

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree    
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  ia32-libs ia32-libs-gtk lib32asound2 lib32bz2-1.0 lib32gcc1 lib32ncurses5
  lib32stdc++6 lib32v4l-0 lib32z1 libv4l-0
Suggested packages:
  lib32asound2-plugins
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ia32-libs ia32-libs-gtk lib32asound2 lib32bz2-1.0 lib32gcc1 lib32ncurses5
  lib32stdc++6 lib32v4l-0 lib32z1 libv4l-0
0 upgraded, 10 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 50.1 MB of archives.
After this operation, 123 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 

2. Get sounds organised

aptitude search pulseaudio|grep ^i

i A libpulse0                       - PulseAudio client libraries 

Not enough. Need. More. Packages.

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-gconf

sudo apt-get install gnome-core

Obviously, if you have gnome installed, skip the second line.

Sort out your ~/.asoundrc file

echo "pcm.!default.type pulse">>~/.asoundrc

echo "ctl.!default.type pulse">>~/.asoundrc

At this point I rebooted for good luck.

3. Putting it all together

First open your volume control to see that it 'looks right'

Start Skype

Go to options (click on the S at the bottom left).  Make sure it says pulseaudio.

Make a test sound. Make a test call. Make sure to select the correct outputs and inputs in the gnome volume control

This worked perfectly for me and took all in all ca 25 minutes with screenshots and all.

Update 15/6/2012:
Skype 4 came out today -- I downloaded and installed it and tested it in the virtual machine above. Everything works perfectly.

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Links to this post:
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=27451