May

How to: Install Skype on 64 bit Debian Wheezy

Posted by Wayno Published in debian, howto, Skill Level: Easy, Skill Level: Medium

It is NOT as easy as it would first seem. Some magic wand waving (oh yes — Hokey Pokey again!) is required.

Download Skype for Debian 7 (multi-arch)

NOTE: if you are using Ubuntu or Linux Mint, you will need to download the Ubuntu Multiarch version, instead.

1. What is multi-arch? Multi-arch supports the 32 bit libraries needed to run Skype or even Boinc. So first we need to tell Wheezy (Debian 7 — 64 bit) that we need this support:

Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.41-2 x86_64 GNU/Linux

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Normally, you would just get a prompt.

2. Now update the system:

sudo apt-get update

and it should find all the necessary components for the 32 bit support. Yup, Skype even on a 64 bit system, is a 32 bit application!

3. I found it necessary to run upgrade after doing the update, this differs from what other sites say.

sudo apt-get upgrade

4. Let’s install Skype!

sudo dpkg -i skype-debian_4.1.0.20-1_i386.deb

Or whatever version you download.

5. If you end up with um-met dependencies like I did, Don’t Panic!

Simply tell Linux to fix the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install -f

Repeat step 4 (above)

6. Q.E.D.

Sample .bashrc script (November 5th, 2017)
How to update the google talk / hangouts plugin for Linux (January 14th, 2014)
200th Post (October 22nd, 2013)
How to install PC Study Bible V5.x using wine in Linux (October 21st, 2013)
HDhomerun3 Product Review (September 24th, 2013)

26 users responded in this post

Subscribe to this post comment rss or trackback url

kelvin said in August 15th, 2013 at 7:33 am

thank you very much! Microsoft can’t hold a candle to you my friend

mathieu said in August 29th, 2013 at 3:22 pm

Thanks ! Skype really sucks on linux.. Waiting for equivalent free softwares !
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/free-software-replacement-for-skype

Also see alternatives here :
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Skype_Replacement

stanley82 said in September 10th, 2013 at 12:38 pm

Repeat 4 above on Wheezy installing
~/Downloads/skype-debian_4.2.0.11-1_i386.deb broken dependencies.
sudo apt-get -f install … bad stuff follows. Ian

Need to get 0 B/143 kB of archives.
After this operation, 201 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database … 176113 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking gcc-4.7-base:i386 (from …/gcc-4.7-base_4.7.2-4_i386.deb) …
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/gcc-4.7-base_4.7.2-4_i386.deb (–unpack):
trying to overwrite shared ‘/usr/share/doc/gcc-4.7-base/changelog.Debian.gz’, which is different from other instances of package gcc-4.7-base:i386
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/gcc-4.7-base_4.7.2-4_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Wrong version of gcc maybe?

Wayno said in September 10th, 2013 at 3:55 pm

Bit confused. Why are you compiling something?

deb is pre-compiled.

Here’s all I did:

Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database … 199917 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing skype …
Purging configuration files for skype …
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme …
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils …
Processing triggers for gnome-menus …

nwayno@Homer:~/Downloads$ sudo dpkg -i skype-debian_4.2.0.11-1_i386.deb
Selecting previously unselected package skype.
(Reading database … 199769 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking skype (from skype-debian_4.2.0.11-1_i386.deb) …
Setting up skype (4.2.0.11-1) …
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils …
Processing triggers for gnome-menus …
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme …

That’s what the install looked like. No gcc involved.
Wayno

stanley82 said in September 10th, 2013 at 5:22 pm

I clicked the deb file and it went good for a bit then broken dependencies. That’s when I went into duckduckgo and did a search and found your help information among others. It’s MintDebian that I’m using. On my Mint15 laptop the deb recommended getting it from the distro SW installer and no probelems, but it’s not in MintDebian. Ian.

Wayno said in September 10th, 2013 at 8:31 pm

Ahh after a couple of emails we figured out the issue. Stanley82 is running Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu. He was trying to install the debian multiarch version, rather then the ubuntu multiarch version. I bet that fixes the issues. Thanks for your patience. Let me know if that works.

Wayno

stanley82 said in September 11th, 2013 at 8:40 am

MintDebian I thought was more debian than ubuntu. Anyway this is what it did, looks the same, libs not there but symantec package manager shows at least the first two as there. I’m going to get pure Wheezy see what it does. Mint15 on my laptop is great. Mint15 on my desktop … well all I get is a screen full of garbage despite nomodeset and vga=771 that always fixed that stuff. Oh yes, thanks for the help. Ian.

~/Downloads/Skype $ sudo dpkg -i skype-ubuntu-precise_4.2.0.11-1_i386.deb
[sudo] password for stan:
Selecting previously unselected package skype.
(Reading database … 175757 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking skype (from skype-ubuntu-precise_4.2.0.11-1_i386.deb) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of skype:
skype depends on libasound2 (>= 1.0.23); however:
Package libasound2:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libc6 (>= 2.3.6-6~); however:
Package libc6:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libc6 (>= 2.7); however:
Package libc6:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1); however:
Package libgcc1:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libqt4-dbus (>= 4:4.5.3); however:
Package libqt4-dbus:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libqt4-network (>= 4:4.8.0); however:
Package libqt4-network:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libqt4-xml (>= 4:4.5.3); however:
Package libqt4-xml:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libqtcore4 (>= 4:4.7.0~beta1); however:
Package libqtcore4:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libqtgui4 (>= 4:4.8.0); however:
Package libqtgui4:i386 is not installed.
skype depends on libqtwebkit4 (>= 2.2~2011week36); however:
Package libqtwebkit4:i386 is not installed.
skype depends o
dpkg: error processing skype (–install):
dependency problems – leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme …
Processing triggers for gnome-menus …
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils …
Errors were encountered while processing:
skype

Bruce said in October 8th, 2013 at 1:18 pm

“3. I found it necessary to run upgrade after doing the update, this differs from what other sites say.”

*INDEED* !! Thank you! That fixed it..

tokumei said in October 10th, 2013 at 9:47 am

Thanks a lot! The best How-To I ever found!

Linux TIP: Installing Skype 4.2 on Debian | Doxdrum's Blog said in October 14th, 2013 at 7:30 am

[…] to this post, the instructions to install the latest Skype on Debian […]

neil said in December 23rd, 2013 at 7:04 pm

step #3 made the difference for me~

Stein said in March 7th, 2014 at 5:47 am

This does not work now with latest skype on wheezy.
Ubuntu Lucid, 10.04 package works.

Wayno said in March 7th, 2014 at 5:39 pm

It works fine on Wheezy:

Debian GNU/Linux 7 \n \l

nwayno@Homer:~$ uname -a
Linux Homer 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.54-2 x86_64 GNU/Linux
nwayno@Homer:~$

Jim Collier said in June 2nd, 2014 at 2:47 am

I certainly seem to have a problem on wheezy 64-bit and not sure how to resolve it – seems I’m in a knot where I can’t remove or install conflicting packages (specifically libsqlite3-0:i386) without causing mayhem:

[root@eor apt]# uname -a
Linux eor 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.57-3+deb7u1 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[root@eor apt]# dpkg –print-architecture
amd64
[root@eor apt]# dpkg –print-foreign-architectures
i386

[root@eor apt]# aptitude why libsqlite3-0:i386
i gnome-core Depends zenity (>= 3.4)
p zenity:i386 Provides zenity
p zenity:i386 Depends libwebkitgtk-3.0-0:i386 (>= 1.3.10)
p libwebkitgtk-3.0-0:i386 Depends libsqlite3-0:i386 (>= 3.5.9)

[root@eor apt]# aptitude why libsqlite3-0:amd64
i iceweasel Depends libsqlite3-0 (>= 3.7.12-1~)

[root@eor apt]# aptitude why-not libsqlite3-0:amd64
i gnome-core Depends zenity (>= 3.4)
p zenity:i386 Provides zenity
p zenity:i386 Depends libwebkitgtk-3.0-0:i386 (>= 1.3.10)
p libwebkitgtk-3.0-0:i386 Depends libsqlite3-0:i386 (>= 3.5.9)
p libsqlite3-0:i386 Breaks libsqlite3-0 (!= 3.7.13-1+deb7u1)

[root@eor apt]# aptitude why-not libsqlite3-0:i386
i libsqlite3-0 Breaks libsqlite3-0:i386 (!= 3.7.17-1~bpo60+1)

Any suggestions as to how I can get out of this pickle welcome – many thanks.

Jim Collier said in June 2nd, 2014 at 3:45 am

Solved it … seems the backports version of libsqlite3-0:amd64 [3.7.17-1~bpo60+1] won’t co-exist with libsqlite3-0:i386 [3.7.13-1+deb7u1]:

1 Comment out from /etc/apt/sources.list:
#deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ wheezy-backports iceweasel-release

2 apt-get update

3 apt-get install –reinstall iceweasel

4 dpkg -r –force-depends libsqlite3-0:amd64

5 apt-get install libsqlite3-0:amd64 libsqlite3-0:i386 libqtwebkit4:i386

6 dpkg -i skype-debian_4.2.0.13-1_i386.deb

Matteo "roghan" Cappelli said in June 24th, 2014 at 2:50 am

Many thanks for your post!! These instructions work perfectly! Great!

Welder said in July 4th, 2014 at 10:48 am

Obrigado pelo post. Fiz os procedimentos e consegui instalar conforme ensinou.
Obrigado.

Jeff Krebs said in August 16th, 2014 at 1:32 pm

Thank You very much – worked like a charm!

Javier said in September 17th, 2014 at 7:18 am

Thanks, it works pretty good for me!. On Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Arnoud Roeland said in September 25th, 2014 at 6:41 am

Thank you very much! I downloaded the Debian version of Skype 4.3 and installed it under Mint Debian Edition. It works great 🙂

DynamicDesignz said in October 17th, 2014 at 12:56 am

Check out Future Buffalo Web Design for all of your WordPress based online marketing needs!

Zo said in November 26th, 2014 at 8:10 am

Thank you very much for this HowTo Wayno

Zachary Straub said in January 21st, 2015 at 10:28 pm

Hey does anyone know if this method works with Chrombooks too with a Linux partition? TIA!

wharng said in January 28th, 2015 at 5:46 am

Ok this is a crucial step I had to do to make it work: in synaptic package manager and settings>repositories, tick that ‘recommended updates’ one right below security updates.

then when you do all these steps, it THEN recommends packages to install, all those i386 depencencies by the look of them, and skype 4.3 (skype-debian_4.3.0.37-1_i386.deb) downloaded today on 28th jan 2015, WORKS!!!

Habicht said in May 2nd, 2015 at 12:43 pm

For me it worked well with Jessie as well on two machines. Thanks a lot!

Felipe said in January 1st, 2016 at 5:22 pm

Hey, just wanted to say thank you!
Great tutorial and it just works 🙂

How to: Install Skype on 64 bit Debian Wheezy

Related Articles

26 users responded in this post

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Meta

Recent Posts

Recent Comments