How to install Skype 4.2 on CentOS 6.4

 
1. introduction
Skype is a freemium voice-over-IP service and instant messaging client developed by the Microsoft Skype Division. It is the consumers version of Microsoft Lync, an instant messaging client for businesses.
Skype was first released in August 2003 written by Estonian developers Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn, Danish Janus Friis, and Swedish Niklas Zennström, who had also originally developed Kazaa. Skype has 663 million registered users as of the end of 2010.It was bought by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion. Microsoft's Skype division headquarters is in Luxembourg, but most of the development team and 44% of the overall employees of the division are still situated in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.
2. Install Skype 4.2 on CentOS 6.4
Step 1: Install Skype Needed Dependencies

#yum install alsa-lib.i686 fontconfig.i686 freetype.i686 \
glib2.i686 libSM.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 libXi.i686 \
libXrandr.i686 libXrender.i686 libXv.i686 libstdc++.i686 \
pulseaudio-libs.i686 qt.i686 qt-x11.i686 zlib.i686

Step 2: Download Skype

#wget http://download.skype.com/linux/skype_static-4.0.0.8.tar.bz2

Step 3: Extract Skype

#mkdir /opt/skype

#tar xvf skype_static* -C /opt/skype --strip-components=1 

Step 4: Create libtiff.so.4 link on CentOS

 #cd /usr/lib
 #ln -s libtiff.so.3 /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4

Step 5: Create Launcher, Link icons, lang and sounds

#ln -s /opt/skype/skype.desktop /usr/share/applications/skype.desktop #ln -s /opt/skype/icons/SkypeBlue_48x48.png /usr/share/icons/skype.png #ln -s /opt/skype/icons/SkypeBlue_48x48.png /usr/share/pixmaps/skype.png #touch /usr/bin/skype #chmod 755 /usr/bin/skype

Open /usr/bin/skype with text editor and add following content:

#!/bin/sh
export SKYPE_HOME="/opt/skype"
 
$SKYPE_HOME/skype --resources=$SKYPE_HOME $*

3. Use Skype

Step 1: From command line use skype command

#Skype

Step 2: From Desktop menu CentOS 6.2 Gnome 2 and Skype 4.0 Launcher