How to get and install skype?

[Nils Kassube]

Paul Stear wrote:
> Oh dear!!!  It's just too much hassle microphone not working - what
> is pulse audio anyway?  web cam not found.

Pulse audio is a certain layer of the audio system. If things haven't 
changed, you could run the program pavucontrol (from the package with 
the same name). With this program you can enable your microphone.

And for the webcam you could first check if the program cheese can see 
it. If that works, you may want to start skype with the command

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

from konsole on a 64bit system or with the command

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

on a 32bit system.

Please note: I haven't tried any of the commands above because I don't 
use skype. But from what I remember from helping a friend to run skype 
with a webcam with a previous version of Kubuntu, it should work.

> Why can't things be simple plug and play and off you go.

Please ask Microsoft, they are the owner of Skype. But to be fair, Skype 
wasn't working without problems before it was bought by Microsoft.


Nils