I'm trying to install Skype (don't ask) onto this iMac (Intel) running Ubuntu 10.04 and I'm already super annoyed. Generally I don't like 3rd party software installed as a .deb package, so let's go for the dynamically linked version, shall we? Only 19MB to download, I'm sure Ubuntu has already installed all the necessary libraries.

$ ./skype: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: 
   cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
$ ldd ./skype | grep not
	libasound.so.2 => not found
	libXv.so.1 => not found
	libXss.so.1 => not found
	libQtDBus.so.4 => not found
	libQtGui.so.4 => not found
	libQtNetwork.so.4 => not found
	libQtCore.so.4 => not found
	libstdc++.so.6 => not found
	libgcc_s.so.1 => not found
	libX11.so.6 => not found
	libXext.so.6 => not found

Wow. that's a lot of "not found" there. But it was late and I didn't think of it much, let's just get the statically linked version instead. With 26MB a bit bigger, that must be because they stuffed all the needed libraries into the tarball, right? No, they did not. There were even *more* libraries not found. Huh? But again, I did not want to spend time debugging this and I went to to get the Ubuntu package (8.10, 64bit). Yes, it's quite old (I'm sure they've backported all their security fixes, hm? :-)) but 64bit, that's my address. Alas, it still would not work - but this time the install process gave it away:

# dpkg -i /root/pkg/skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.81-1_amd64.deb 
Selecting previously deselected package skype.
(Reading database ... 143081 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking skype (from .../skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.81-1_amd64.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of skype:
 skype depends on lib32stdc++6 (>= 4.1.1-21); however:
  Package lib32stdc++6 is not installed.
 skype depends on lib32asound2 (>> 1.0.14); however:
  Package lib32asound2 is not installed.
 skype depends on ia32-libs (>= 1.6); however:
  Package ia32-libs is not installed.
 skype depends on lib32gcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1-21+ia32.libs.1.19); however:
  Package lib32gcc1 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing skype (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

wtf? Why do they label it "64bit" when it clearly isn't? Now I have to clutter my system with these 32bit emulation libraries again. Sigh.