Skype for Debian amd64

Skype installation on amd64 linux is tricky. It requires various 32 bit libraries. Furthermore, newer versions are incompatible and broken. Older versions are not easily found.

There are some basic instructions available at http://wiki.debian.org/skype. To get Skype working on OSS requires a specific binary, which will be archived here. Instructions follow:

1. Download older i386 version of skype: skype-debian_2.0.0.68-1_i386.deb. We will install this using dpkg to set up all the icons, menus, etc. But the binary in this package is for alsa, not OSS.
2. Download older static OSS binary: skype_static-2.0.0.72-oss.
3. Install the deb package using dpkg.
4. Overwrite the dpkg-installed skype alsa binary with the oss binary.

aptitude install ia32-libs ia32-libs-gtk libasound2-plugins libqt4-core libqt4-gu
cd /tmp
wget -q http://egeland.net/pub/skype-debian_2.0.0.68-1_i386.deb
wget -q http://egeland.net/pub/skype_static-2.0.0.72-oss
dpkg -i --force-architecture skype-debian_2.0.0.68-1.deb
mv skype_static-2.0.0.72-oss /usr/bin/skype

The result will be a Skype application in the menus and a binary that will work on amd64 with OSS. For alsa, simply don't overwrite the original binary.