Skype

About

Skype is a P2P (peer to peer) VoIP (Voice over IP) application with support for video. For a fee, it also supports dialing out to regular telephone numbers (SkypeOut) and incoming calls and voicemail from regular telephones (SkypeIn). Calls between Skype users, including video calls, are free. It also provides a free text chat system and conference calling.

Installation

To install Skype just run:

emerge -av skype

Testing

Testing can be done by calling skype-user "echo123". With this, you can test your sound setup without disturbing anybody. The Skype options menu supports testing of your video capture device.

Troubleshooting

• If Skype crashes with a "floating point exception", try recompiling with the qt-static USE flag enabled for Ebuild:net-im/skype.
• There are many reported issues across various distros that Skype has issues working with PulseAudio.

Skype for Windows through Wine

Skype for Linux has a turmulous history of bugs and poorly implementing sound devices and systems. Running Skype through Wine may solve these problems for some.

Success has been had with running Skype 2.0.0.103 with Wine version 0.9.13 or later. Extensive details are available on the Wine AppDB.

Some people have problems logging in with Skype and Wine. For me this was solved by using Win 98 mode as suggested in this thread.

This way of running Skype supports ALSA, does not lock up, and supports advanced features of the Windows clients with minimal hassle. I recommend running this version when your patience with the Linux one runs out.

See also

• Other voice applications