Apr 11, 2015

Skype setup on amd64 without multilib/multiarch/chroot

Did a kinda-overdue migration of a desktop machine to amd64 a few days ago.
Exherbo has multiarch there, but I didn't see much point in keeping (and maintaining in various ways) a full-blown set of 32-bit libs just for Skype, which I found that I still need occasionally.

Solution I've used before (documented in the past entry) with just grabbing 32-bit Skype binary and full set of libs it needs from whatever distro still works and applies here, not-so-surprisingly.

What I ended up doing is:

  • Grab the latest Fedora "32-bit workstation" iso (Fedora-Live-Workstation-i686-21-5.iso).

  • Install/run it on a virtual machine (plain qemu-kvm).

  • Download "Dynamic" Skype version (distro-independent tar.gz with files) from Skype site to/on a VM, "tar -xf" it.

  • ldd skype-4.3.0.37/skype | grep 'not found' to see which dependency-libs are missing.

  • Install missing libs - yum install qtwebkit libXScrnSaver

  • scp build_skype_env.bash (from skype-space repo that I have from old days of using skype + bitlbee) to vm, run it on a skype-dir - e.g. ./build_skype_env.bash skype-4.3.0.37.

    Should finish successfully and produce "skype_env" dir in the current path.

  • Copy that "skype_env" dir with all the libs back to pure-amd64 system.

  • Since skype binary has "/lib/ld-linux.so.2" as a hardcoded interpreter (as it should be), and pure-amd64 system shouldn't have one (not to mention missing multiarch prefix) - patch it in the binary with patchelf:

    patchelf --set-interpreter ./ld-linux.so.2 skype

  • Run it (from that env dir with all the libs):

    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./skype --resources=.

    Should "just work" \o/

One big caveat is that I don't care about any features there except for simple text messaging, which is probably not how most people use Skype, so didn't test if e.g. audio would work there.
Don't think sound should be a problem though, especially since iirc modern skype could use pulseaudio (or even using it by default?).

Given that skype itself a huge opaque binary, I do have AppArmor profile for the thing (uses "~/.Skype/env/" dir for bin/libs) - home.skype.

posted on 2015-04-11 09:55 YEKT
desktop exherbo unix