Installing Skype on Debian x64: pkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of skype

When a package fails to configure, you can install the missing dependencies after the fact using apt-get install -f. Here is the description of -f from the documentation:

  -f, --fix-broken
     Fix; attempt to correct a system with broken dependencies in place.
     This option, when used with install/remove, can omit any packages to 
     permit APT to deduce a likely solution. 

If the package installation fails prior to the configure step do to dependencies, then those packages need to be installed manually. This is because the package declares Pre-depends rather than Depends on those packages.

dependancies are packages your package needs to run ( for example libraries etc ). If you install a package trough aptitude / apt / synaptic this will check for the dependancies and download them.

If you download a .deb file and try to install it manually this might not be the case. As posted before you need to install the required packages before installing skype again:

f.e.:

aptitude install lib32stdc++6 lib32asound2 ia32-libs libc6-i386 lib32gcc1 ia32-libs-gtk

I'm not 100% sure the above command will work. If aptitude / apt complains that it can not find a package you can search the repositories for the correct name:

aptitude search ia32-libs

then, once that all these packages are installed you can install skype again:

dpkg -i skype-install.deb

Older info: Debian Jessie x64 KDE (back when it was still "testing")

These commands are what works for me:

$ wget -O skype-install.deb http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-deb
# dpkg --add-architecture i386
# aptitude update
# dpkg -i skype-install.deb
# aptitude install -f libc6:i386 libc6:i386 libgcc1:i386 libqt4-dbus:i386\
  libqt4-network:i386 libqt4-xml:i386 libqtcore4:i386 libqtgui4:i386\
  libqtwebkit4:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libx11-6:i386 libxext6:i386 libxss1:i386\
  libxv1:i386 libssl1.0.0:i386 libpulse0:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386

Some of the packages above are dependent on each other, so this is a bit redundant, but in any case these are what skype-install.deb states as missing dependencies in my system.

---

Updated info: Debian Jessie x64 (which is "stable" atm)

A simpler and more generic set of commands, which works for KDE for certain, but should work for any environment:

$ wget -O skype-install.deb http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-deb
# dpkg --add-architecture i386
# aptitude update
# gdebi skype-install.deb

More info can also be found on the debian wiki page.