Skype on SLED

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop SLED Applications
1

People have been asking me for a skype call lately, and seeing that SLED11 SP3 has Qt4.6, which doesn’t fit in the minimum requirements for Qt4.7 of Skype, I’d like to know how to have skype working on SLED11 SP3.

I already used the guide in some other thread on this forum, and installed the following packages.

yast -i glibc-32bit libasound2-32bit xorg-x11-libXv-32bit xorg-x11-libs-32bit libqt4-32bit libQtWebKit4-32bit libstdc++46-32bit alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit

And I was able to run Skype with no errors showing up in the terminal where I ran it from.
However,

I couldn’t login with my new Microsoft account.

TLDR:

I also asked on the skype forum for an older package of skype suitable for dynamic deployment on SLED
and I assigned a special destination port 5505 for skype and opened it in the yast firewall.

2

Given the list of packages you say you’ve installed, it looks like you’re using SLED 11 SP3 64bit, correct?

The Dynamic package for version 4.2.0.13 (the current version) works for me
http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-linux/downloading/?type=dynamic
The packages you list are the ones I found I needed to install to get Skype 4.2.0.13 working. I very rarely use Skype, but I’ve just launched it and logged in successfully.

Since you say it runs and there’s no visible errors, could the problem be with the account you’re trying to log in with? Are you able to try using it with Skype on another device? The account I use for Skype pre-dates Skype being acquired by Microsoft so it’s just a Skype account.

3

Yes, this is SLED 11 SP3 64bit.

For the Skype part, I only have the Microsoft account, so I will try it on some other OS later today.

4

I had the same problem and if I recall correctly it was solved after installing openssl packages

Hope this helps

5

[QUOTE=aabdelkhalek;19869]I had the same problem and if I recall correctly it was solved after installing openssl packages
[/QUOTE]
The only 32bit openssl package I have installed is libopenssl0_9_8-32bit. If I uninstall that then Skype still works.

The other openssl packages I have installed are openssl and libopenssl0_9_8. If I ask zypper to remove libopenssl0_9_8 it wants to remove 820 packages, so I think it’s safe to say that if libopenssl0_9_8 isn’t installed your system is either broken or so minimal it wouldn’t get as far as even launching Skype. If I ask zypper to remove openssl it only wants to remove 96 packages, but one of those is zypper, so if you don’t have openssl installed then you have bigger problems than Skype not connecting.

6

[QUOTE=mikewillis;19874]The only 32bit openssl package I have installed is libopenssl0_9_8-32bit. If I uninstall that then Skype still works.

The other openssl packages I have installed are openssl and libopenssl0_9_8. If I ask zypper to remove libopenssl0_9_8 it wants to remove 820 packages, so I think it’s safe to say that if libopenssl0_9_8 isn’t installed your system is either broken or so minimal it wouldn’t get as far as even launching Skype. If I ask zypper to remove openssl it only wants to remove 96 packages, but one of those is zypper, so if you don’t have openssl installed then you have bigger problems than Skype not connecting.[/QUOTE]

Maybe when you uninstall libopenssl0_9_8-32bit, Skype still works with the skype account but does it work with the Microsoft account?

This is the problem I had; Skype was working and I could login with my Skype ID but when I try to login with my Microsoft account, it fails.

When I installed the openssl packages I managed to login with my Microsoft account (seems that in that particular part ssl is needed)

Thanks
Ahmed

7

[QUOTE=aabdelkhalek;19885]Maybe when you uninstall libopenssl0_9_8-32bit, Skype still works with the skype account but does it work with the Microsoft account?
[/QUOTE]
Good point, I only tested with a Skype account.

Out of curiosity I signed up for a Microsoft account. Then I tried to log in to Skype with it and I can’t. It’s not that I try to log in and it fails, it’s that the option to log in with a Microsoft account to appear doesn’t even appear. Click ‘Alternatively sign in with Microsoft Account’ and the login dialogue appears for a split second then the Skype login dialogue comes back. This happens regardless of whether libopenssl0_9_8-32bit is installed or not and persists if the firewall is disabled (OP made mention of opening port on firewall, something I’ve never had to do to make Skype work.)

The original poster said “I couldn’t login with my new Microsoft account.” and I can’t log in with my new Microsoft account, but I the reasons might actually be different. The original poster made no mention of their inability to login with their Microsoft account being because the option to do so isn’t accessible.

Logging in to Skype with a Microsoft account works fine on openSUSE 13.1 64bit.

Curious.

8

This is the situation (the login dialogue appears for a split second and disappears) that I had and I thought it was solved with libopenssl installation but maybe I’m wrong!

I also installed libopenssl1_0_0-1.0.1e-155.1

Anyway, I was just trying to share my experience, too bad that I was not able to pinpoint the exact action that resolved the issue back then

9

[QUOTE=mikewillis;19893]Good point, I only tested with a Skype account.

Out of curiosity I signed up for a Microsoft account. Then I tried to log in to Skype with it and I can’t. It’s not that I try to log in and it fails, it’s that the option to log in with a Microsoft account to appear doesn’t even appear. Click ‘Alternatively sign in with Microsoft Account’ and the login dialogue appears for a split second then the Skype login dialogue comes back. This happens regardless of whether libopenssl0_9_8-32bit is installed or not and persists if the firewall is disabled (OP made mention of opening port on firewall, something I’ve never had to do to make Skype work.)

The original poster said “I couldn’t login with my new Microsoft account.” and I can’t log in with my new Microsoft account, but I the reasons might actually be different. The original poster made no mention of their inability to login with their Microsoft account being because the option to do so isn’t accessible.

Logging in to Skype with a Microsoft account works fine on openSUSE 13.1 64bit.

Curious.[/QUOTE]

That’s right. I can basically open skype from a command line, and there I have the login screen. However, the alternative option to sign in with a Microsoft account is not doing anything.

And I’m glad to hear that Skype works for you. I was even trying to find out if skype performs the same error on another distro, Thanks for mentioning that.

Anyway, I already had all the openssl packages mentioned:

rpm -qa|grep -i ssl

openssl-0.9.8j-0.52.1
perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-RSA-0.25-3.14
perl-IO-Socket-SSL-1.38-5.2.2
libopenssl0_9_8-0.9.8j-0.52.1
perl-Net-SSLeay-1.35-2.14
perl-Crypt-SSLeay-0.57-1.15.1
openssl-certs-1.96-0.4.1
libopenssl0_9_8-32bit-0.9.8j-0.52.1

However, my system is the same since downloading the trial version and registering it, except for these packages:
glibc-32bit libasound2-32bit xorg-x11-libXv-32bit xorg-x11-libs-32bit libqt4-32bit libQtWebKit4-32bit libstdc++46-32bit alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit

So my conclusion is that there is a package that will bring skype to show up the alternative login screen for the Microsoft account, and I’ll let you know when I find it.

10

Not sure if you’re still trying to use your Microsoft account to login to Skype or not any more but just to let you know, I just downloaded the dynamic package of their latest version 4.3 and I managed to login with my Microsoft account.

It just needed the package LibQtWebKit-devel and that’s it

Good luck,
Ahmed

11

Hi Mike,

how do install the dynamic skype package?
When starting the unpacked skype file from dolphin using yast, it comes up fine, I can log in. But when closing it, it is gone.
I tried ./configure, but it says no such file or directory.
What to do now?
Thanks and BR
Nadine

12

The dynamic version is a .tar.bz2 file, so it’s a compressed archive. You don’t install it, you just unpack it and run it.
Assuming you downloaded it to your Downloads folder

$ cd ~/Downloads $ tar xfv skype-4.3.0.37.tar.bz2

To run it

$ ~/Downloads/skype-4.3.0.37/skype

I’m telling you how to do it on the command line because it’s so much easier than describing how to click on various things.

Assuming that you are using 64bit and that you have not already installed the packages mentioned in this thread you need to run this as root to install libraries that Skype requires.

$ zypper refresh $ zypper in glibc-32bit libasound2-32bit xorg-x11-libXv-32bit xorg-x11-libs-32bit libqt4-32bit libQtWebKit4-32bit libstdc++46-32bit alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit

N.B. The current version of Skype for Linux 4.3 which was released since this thread started and I haven’t tried it. For an utterly infuriating reason I won’t bore you with I am not currently able to test it on SLED 11 SP3.

13

[QUOTE=mikewillis;24736]
N.B. The current version of Skype for Linux 4.3 which was released since this thread started and I haven’t tried it. For an utterly infuriating reason I won’t bore you with I am not currently able to test it on SLED 11 SP3.[/QUOTE]

I’ve tried it now and it works fine as far, as I can tell.

14

Hi Mike,

do I understand correctly that it is not possible to install it but just run it?
This works for me through yast. I BTW run the 32bit system.
BR
Nadine

15

The Dynamic version is supplied pre-compiled in a .tar.bz2 archive so there is nothing to install. It’s an archive, all you can do with it is unpack it. If it helps, replace .tar.bz2 with .zip in the previous sentence. A zip file is an archive, a .tar.bz2 file is just a different sort of archive. You can’t install a .zip file, all you can do is unpack it.

I’m afraid I have no idea what you mean by that. What exactly are you doing with YaST? What is the name of the file you’ve downloaded?

16

Sorry for being rather strange in wording.
I unpacked the tar.bz-file and then opened to the unpacked folder in konqueror as root.
There I right-clicked on the skype file and assigned the application yast to it as the default application.
This opens Skype in Yast as administrator and I can log in and use it.

Does this make sense to you?
BR
Nadine

17

[QUOTE=jinggles1;24914]Sorry for being rather strange in wording.
I unpacked the tar.bz-file and then opened to the unpacked folder in konqueror as root.
There I right-clicked on the skype file and assigned the application yast to it as the default application.
This opens Skype in Yast as administrator and I can log in and use it.

Does this make sense to you?
BR
Nadine[/QUOTE]
I think I understand what you are doing, though I do not have KDE installed to be able to recreate it. What I do not understand is why you are doing what you are doing.

There is need to unpack the .tar.bz2 file as root. There is no need to run Skype as root and you should not run Skype as root. You should not run anything as root that does not have to be run as root. I cannot imagine why, or even how, you would open Skype in YaST.

All you need to do is unpack the .tar.bz2 file then run the skype executable. You can run it by invoking it in the command line as I described in a previous post, or just double clicking it. root and YaST should not come in to it at any point.

18

[QUOTE=mikewillis;24917]I think I understand what you are doing, though I do not have KDE installed to be able to recreate it. What I do not understand is why you are doing what you are doing.

There is need to unpack the .tar.bz2 file as root. There is no need to run Skype as root and you should not run Skype as root. You should not run anything as root that does not have to be run as root. I cannot imagine why, or even how, you would open Skype in YaST.

All you need to do is unpack the .tar.bz2 file then run the skype executable. You can run it by invoking it in the command line as I described in a previous post, or just double clicking it. root and YaST should not come in to it at any point.[/QUOTE]

I have successfully installed skype from the skype.com just select the ‘OpenSUSE 12.1 32bit’ download the rmp file and run. it work great :smiley:

19

It would be useful if you stated which version of SLED you have done this on. This thread has been about SLED 11 SP3. The few other posts you have made so far are about SLED 12.

20

Hi Mike,

I am fully with you on the issue of running something as root and now I also understand what you wanted to explain before.
My problem is that absolutely nothing happens when I just double-click on the skype file.
I have the impression that something is set up wrongly here.
When I right-click on the file and use the menu section “open with”, what should be marked there so it executes the skype file?
Sorry, that is probably the total newbie question but I am a bit stuck here.

Even in terminal it tells me “command not found” although the file is there and I am trying to run it from the same folder.
Do I have to change attributes of the file or does it have to be placed in a special folder, e.g. bin?

Thanks.