Installing Skype on Debian Wheezy [amd64]

Question

Yes, yet another question about how to install Skype on Debian Wheezy (7.4) amd64. Seen countless similar articles and forum threads on how to do it, but it doesn't for me :(

Here is what I do:

dpkg --add-architecture i386
apt-get update
wget -O skype-install.deb http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-deb
dpkg -i skype-install.deb

installs only partially:

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of skype:
 skype depends on libasound2 (>= 1.0.16).
 skype depends on libc6 (>= 2.3.6-6~).
 skype depends on libc6 (>= 2.7).
 skype depends on libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1).
 skype depends on libqt4-dbus (>= 4:4.5.3).
 skype depends on libqt4-network (>= 4:4.8.0).
 skype depends on libqt4-xml (>= 4:4.5.3).
 skype depends on libqtcore4 (>= 4:4.7.0~beta1).
 skype depends on libqtgui4 (>= 4:4.8.0).
 skype depends on libqtwebkit4 (>= 2.1.0~2011week13).
 skype depends on libstdc++6 (>= 4.6).
 skype depends on libx11-6.
 skype depends on libxext6.
 skype depends on libxss1.
 skype depends on libxv1.
 skype depends on libssl1.0.0.
 skype depends on libasound2-plugins.

dpkg: error processing skype (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 skype

Try to fix this with apt-get -f install:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  skype:i386
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 27 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.

I tried different repos, using aptitude -f install and so on. Nothing helps. Any ideas, please? Those were quite a wasted few hours...

Solution 1

After I ran out of options - resolving dependencies problem with trying to install all the necessary :i386 packets turned out not to be an option - eventually apt-get suggest to remove 1104 packages and install new 20 :D - I found this particular line from https://wiki.debian.org/skype:

Not able to install libqtwebkit4:i386

If apt-get is not able to install libqtwebkit4:i386 as dependency, try with aptitude (If you know what are you doing)

As you probably want the version skype-debian_2.2.0.35-1_amd64.deb ( as newer versions have problems associated with pulseaudio )

So I went for a blind wget -O skype.deb http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-debian_2.2.0.35-1_amd64.deb && dpkg -i skype.deb and skype was installed without any dependencies problems! 2.2 is kinda old, but at least it works.

Solution 2

I also had that problem, the following worked for me, the crucial part was doing an apt-get autoclean and an apt-get autoremove:

• Download the latest debian version(what you already did).

• Run the following commands:

dpkg --add-architecture i386

sudo apt-get -f install

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get -f install

• This is the important part which solved my problem.

sudo apt-get autoclean

sudo apt-get autoremove

• Then finally installing Skype either:

sudo apt-get install skype or

dpkg -i skype-... .deb

where skype... .deb is the .deb you downloaded from skype.com.

Comments

[kK-Storm]

@PietroBattiston that true. I found alternative solution and posted it on debianforum

[Pietro Battiston]

In fact, simply downloading the "Dynamic" version and running the "skype" executable seems to work for me - since I have the dependencies of the older versions already installed in my (Debian) system, I needed no other files.