Skype is a popular text, video and voice (VoIP) chat client.  A more detailed article can be found on the Wikipedia Skype page.  Here is a list of some of the hurdles I've ran into getting the client to work on my own distribution.

PROBLEM

Skype for Linux had poor video in the not so distant past so having upgrade to Fedora 12 recently, I've decided to see if my setup still worked fine.  So the typical problem you might run into is that Skype will simply crash when doing anything with a webcam (When using a command like # /usr/bin/skype & or from your UI menus which defaults to that command anyway).  Here's one way how to resolve this issue that worked for me.

SOLUTION

If you're using KDE, like me, run the following from the console to check, at first, if the Skype client can actually detect and use your camera (Make sure you have one first.).  Follow these steps:

1. Open Konsole (/usr/bin/konsole) terminal emulator from KDE or any other terminal emulator you may have.
    
2. Ensure you have Skype installed.  Type below to make sure (I'm running Fedora 12 but the FC5 package works anyway):
   # rpm -aq|grep -i skype
   skype-2.0.0.72-fc5.i586
   # ll /usr/bin/skype
   3804084 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 13951916 2008-05-28 06:29 /usr/bin/skype
    
3. Check to ensure you have the v4l libraries installed.  (These will be important in getting Video working)
   # ll /usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so
   4506233 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4320 2009-10-25 04:24 /usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so
   # rpm -fq /usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so
   libv4l-0.6.3-1.fc12.i686
   (NOTE: If you don't have the above package installed, run yum install libv4l to get it installed.  The corresponding command would be apt-get on Ubuntu since yum is likely not available there)
    
4. Run Skype manually using
   # env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so nice -n 19 /usr/bin/skype &
    
5. Following above, within Skype, open the Video Devices Options page and follow these steps:
   • Click Skype Start Menu (bottom left blue icon)
   • Click Options
   • Click Video Devices
   • Select the webcam camera you have or want to use if you have more then one.
   • Click Test in the video test rectangle.
6. You should now see results similar to the below:

7. If the above works, with the new parameters, you can consider updating your KDE menus to reflect the change in the manner below (So the environment is set each time you start Skype):
   • From the KDE start menu, search for KMenuEdit.  If no icon exists, try to start it from the command line using /usr/bin/kmenuedit.
   • Search for your Skype icon.  Mine was under the Internet submenu.
   • Edit your settings similarly to the below screenshot (You can skip adding nice -n 19 if you don't want to use any grace value):

PROBLEM

Another issue I was having is after installing Skype from Skype.com.  After installing, I got

"p2p connect failed" skype

Using Fedora 7 skype RPM from Skype.com (Note you can install older Fedora packages on newer Fedora distributions):

# wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-fc7
# rpm -ivh skype-2.0.0.72-fc5.i586.rpm
warning: skype-2.0.0.72-fc5.i586.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID d66b746e
Preparing…                ########################################### [100%]
   1:skype                  ########################################### [100%]
# rpm -aq|grep skype
skype-2.0.0.72-fc5.i586
#

Trying to connect gave:

"p2p connect failed" skype

SOLUTION

Edit the file: /home/YOURFOLDER/.Skype/shared.xml and there change:

<DisablePort80>1</DisablePort80>

TO

<DisablePort80>0</DisablePort80>
 

To resolve the public key issue, try these steps:

1. Get the public key from http://www.skype.com/products/skype/linux/rpm-public-key.asc:
2. Run rpm –import rpm-public-key.asc
3. Optionally update yum with these settings through /etc/yum.conf:
   [skype]
   name=Skype Repository
   baseurl=http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/fedora/3/updates/i586/
4. Refresh yum using:
   # yum install skype

And try again.  🙂

Good Luck!
TK