Skype with video on Linux Mint (and Ubuntu)

Although some webcams work on Linux Mint with Cheese and other webcam apps, they do not all work out of the box with Skype . You may have a green screen when you access your video on skype or no video at all. This issue is down to the video 4 linux libraries (V4L). By default the current library is V4L2, to make your webcam work with Skype if you have this problem, requires the preloading of V4L to make it compatible or V4L2 conversion.

Read the original article here. Its with illustrations. http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/219

Listed below is a simple and quick way to get your webcam up and running with Skype.

In A terminal type:

gksu gedit /usr/local/bin/skype

This will open your editor with a blank text file, copy and paste the following lines into your blank text file.

Use lines below for x86(32bit)

#!/bin/bash

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

Use lines below for x64(64bit)

#!/bin/bash

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

Save the file and close it.

Now to make the file executable, copy and paste the following line into Terminal.

gksu chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/skype

Press Enter and close the Terminal, start Skype and webcam works.

If your webcam has a built-in microphone, to set it to default for use with Skype, go to

Menu> Preferences > Sound

Click on the input tab and select your webcam microphone from the choices listed for input devices.

(Make sure microphone volume is not muted).

If Skype crashes when starting video during a call, do the following.

Make a Skype call without starting your video, get the person you are calling to start their video, you should now see a light blue video icon appear at the bottom of the Skype call window.

Click on the video icon and change the video size from "Normal Size" to "Double Size"

Now start your video. (Please note that this is more of a workaround than anything else, if the person you have called stops their video before you, then Skype will crash)

As an alternative if the above fix does not work try using the lines below instead.

Use lines below for x86(32bit)

#!/bin/bash

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l2convert.so /usr/bin/skype

Use lines below for x64(64bit)

#!/bin/bash

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l2convert.so /usr/bin/skype

Make file executable:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/skype

As an alternative if the above fix does not work try using the lines below instead.

#!/bin/bash

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

Make it executable:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/skype

Start Skype

SKYPE in Ubuntu 13.04

Some Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail users are having issues with Skype not starting when using the proprietary Nvidia graphics drivers (it crashes / segfaults). So here's a work-around you can use to get it to work until this is fixed in Ubuntu / Skype.

Get Skype to work In Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail (with proprietary Nvidia graphis drivers)

1. To get Skype to work in Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail with proprietary Nvidia drivers, firstly we'll rename the Skype executable from "skype" to "skype-bin":

sudo mv /usr/bin/skype /usr/bin/skype-bin

2. Now let's create a file called "skype" under /usr/bin/ - for this we'll launch a text editor as root (I'll use Gedit in the instructions below):

gksu gksu gedit /usr/bin/skype

(use "gksu" twice in the command above so Gedit doesn't open a blank tab along with the file you're editing)

And in this file, paste the following:

#!/bin/sh

export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1

exec skype-bin

Then save the file.

3. And finally, run the following command in a terminal:

sudo chmod 0755 /usr/bin/skype

That's it. Now Skype should work in Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail.

If you want to revert the changes made by using the instructions above, use these commands:

sudo rm /usr/bin/skype

sudo mv /usr/bin/skype-bin /usr/bin/skype

Skype in Ubuntu 13.10

Ubuntu 13.10 (and derivatives) users: if you're using Skype downloaded from its official website and not from the Ubuntu repositories, chances are the sound in Skype is either distorted or there's no sound at all.

This issue occurs because Ubuntu 13.10 ships with PulseAudio 4.0 and Skype doesn't properly support it yet.

This Skype issue can be fixed in two ways:

A. Install Skype from the Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) repositories, which comes with a fix for this issue. This is the recommended way of installing Skype in Ubuntu since it usually comes with extra fixes that aren't available in the deb downloaded from Skype's website.

Firstly you'll need to enable the "Canonical Partners" repository. To do this, launch "Software & Updates" from System Settings and on the Other Software tab, enable "Canonical Partners":

Then, update the software sources and install Skype:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install skype

B. If for whatever reason you don't want to install Skype from the Ubuntu repositories, you can apply a fix to the Skype version downloaded from its official website.

To fix the Skype no sound / distorted sound issue in Ubuntu 13.10, run the following command:

sudo sed -i 's/^Exec=.*/Exec=env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 skype %U/' /usr/share/applications/skype.desktop