When installing Ubuntu on my laptop, I made the choice to run it in 64 bits mode having in mind that it might lead to various problems. One of them, is to get Skype running. Since this product is proprietary, no package can be created for 64 bits. You still can get it work by installing the appropriate library.
In one lazy-command-that-does-everything-but-you-should-still-be-careful-with, it goes like this:
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32asound2; wget –N boundlesssupremacy.com/Cappy/getlibs/getlibs-all.deb; wget –O skype-install.deb http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-ubuntu; sudo dpkg –i getlibs-all.deb; sudo dpkg –i –force-all skype-install.deb; sudo getlibs /usr/bin/skype
From http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=432295
With the new PulseAudio system in Ubuntu, Skype doesn’t like it at all and won’t let you place a call. A workaround is to use the padsp program to run skype. In a terminal:
padsp skype
From the man page: “padsp starts the specified program and redirects its access to OSS compatible audio devices (/dev/dsp and auxiliary devices) to a PulseAudio sound server.”
If you start Skype without this, you will see some error messages like this:
ALSA lib ../../../src/pcm/pcm_dmix.c:874:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
2 Comments
1 Richard Wicks wrote:
Doesn’t work for me unless all my sounds are off in my system.
I am running Hardy 64 bit, with a VLC stream running using Pulse Audio.
I recently moved from Ubuntu 8.10 which had massive audio issues, and stability problems with compiz. I originally had PCLinuxOS, but it doesn’t really support AMD 64.
I have to ask, why is the audio so terrible with Ubuntu?
And not to complain about a free product — the Nvidia server didn’t install from synaptic under 8.4, I had to get the driver from their site to get it working properly.
In 8.10, it wouldn’t allow me to setup a static IP address for ethernet, VMWare wouldn’t install without a patch, Samba setup is not exactly obvious, and the sound continually just died, and Beryl would occasionally just stop working. 8.4 seems to be much more stable. I am very unhappy with 8.10. They should warn people.
2 Richard Wicks wrote:
OK, set VLC to use ALSA, startup skype with with or without padsp, and it works.
OK, Vmware, ethernet, samba, apache, to go.