Ubuntu 10.04 upgrade on Toshiba Satellite: Skype

Ubuntu 10.04 upgrade on Toshiba Satellite: Adobe Flash Player

The last time I checked, there was no 64-bit Skype client for Linux. On http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux/ I found a beta version available, and they showed a 64-bit version available. I downloaded it to give it a try.

No instructions were provided, but I saw by the filename that it was a .deb file. Fellow noobs might recall that Ubuntu is descended from Debian, so we can use Debian utilities on Ubuntu. In Terminal, I ran the following command:

sudo dpkg -i skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.81-1_amd64.deb

The installer complained of missing dependencies. I tried apt-get install on the exact names of packages the installer listed:

sudo apt-get install
    lib32stdc++6
    lib32asound2
    ia32-libs
    libc6-i386
    lib32gcc1

Ubuntu could find no installation candidate for any of these packages.

An Internet search brought me to http://blog.mypapit.net/2007/06/how-to-install-skype-on-ubuntu.html, which mentioned adding deb http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/debian/ stable non-free to Synaptic Package Manager.

I made a backup of /etc/apt/sources/list

cd /etc/apt
sudo cp sources.list sources.list.backup

and edited the file, adding the repository at the end.

When I tried the apt-get install command above, everything was found except list32stdc++6. Another Internet search took me to http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1457771, where someone had reported a similar problem and later posted that an update had fixed it. I tried

sudo apt-get update

but the update complained that it could not find http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/debian/dists/stable/non-free/binary-amd64/Packages.gz.

I went back into /etc/apt/sources.list and commented out the line for that repository, then tried the update again. No complaints, so I tried

sudo apt-get install lib32stdc++6

This time it complained about unmet dependencies, and suggested running this:

sudo apt-get -f install

This did quite a lot, including installing or updating all the dependencies the dpkg command had complained about. It took a while.

To my surprise, it installed the Skype client as well. I called my wife, and she could see me but not hear me. I could see and hear her. We were unable to resolve the problem. Afterwards, I browsed the Internet and eventually found a bug report at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/584051 that said the internal microphone on Toshiba Satellite laptops doesn't work under Ubuntu 10.04 due to a bug in the alsa driver. It's low priority and they may or may not fix it. Other postings online suggest an external microphone will work. I might try that later.

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