Is there any chance of the amd64 1.4 version of Skype being released? I know there are workarounds (32bit chroot) but it's just too much hussle to get one app to work.. Using 32bit binaries is also a no-go, since there are none for libsigc++ in portage (I use Gentoo)...

It would be great if I could get a simple Yes/No answer...

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but I do use a 64bit Gentoo and have installed several 32bit apps without a problem: skype, mplayer-bin, openoffice-bin, firefox-bin (only before nspluginwrapper ), Doom 3 and UT2004, among others. You do have to use the gentoo emulation layer, which I believe kicks on by default.

Why is it you cannot install yours?

Edit: I realized where you might be getting problems by reading this post. Check it out as this guy could workaround it. I'm still waiting for inclusion in portage, although now I think it'll take a while before it does get included.

[I'm using dev-libs/libsigc++-2.0.17, but I'm not completely familiar with the toolchain]

P.S.: It would be awesome to have everything in 64 bits; however, it's hard to live without video and audio plugins among others.

Yes, there is a chance.
No, it won't be soon.

Thanks,
Andypoo.

Thank you.

Tried to install the Alpha, didn't work on my 64 bit OS, **** 'ed off.

you have to install library needed by skype in 32 bit mode

Which libraries?

I have Gentoo using emulation but somehow because of using a static version of skype with qt4 inside it errors:

/opt/skype/skype: error while loading shared libraries: libsigc-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

This is the same problem Jakubz was having before, I believe, and I assume we'll need to wait for qt4 emulation before we could use it. Darn.

add that library in 32 bit mode

Yeah, I'm waiting until this is released in Portage, as right now we have:

app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-qtlibs - QT 2/3 libraries for emulation of 32bit x86 on amd64

If qt4 would be added then I don't think there'll be any problem with libsigc-2.0.so.0.

Let's hope this is done soon, though .

I'm not talking about emulation, I'm talking real 32 bit library under 64 bit that is possible due to amd64 architecture.
Read other topic about this, just other people have successfully run skype 32 bit under linux 64 bit

Cimmo, as far as I know the emul packages are 32 bit libraries or 32bit library interfaces to the 64bit versions. What you are proposing is running skype under a chroot environment, I assume, and that sucks big time as you're running a whole 32 bit system just for skype. Which seems like a waste and I'd rather stick with 1.3.53 for a while longer in that case.

no I suggest to install 32 bit library that they will be used only with 32 bit software, all the rest remain running at 64 bit, that's all.

Ok, I don't know if you use Gentoo, but it's not just installing a 32 bit system on top of the other is a given. I assume I could ask someone running a 32bit gentoo to give me a copy of the libsigc-2.0.so.0, which I could put in the required directory. However, it's probable I'll need more than one library copied over as I foresee getting other issues once that one is found. In any case, it doesn't seem to be such good practice and I'm not that willing to modify the system just to run the app. It most probably will get fixed soon enough without me modifying anything anyway.

no I'm running kubuntu 7.04 that has a nice package called lib32 with all 32 bit libraries needed by 32 bit applications commonly.
It's not so dirty as you paint, just install some 32 bit libraries that will never be used by 64 bit native programs, when you uninstall skype (or other 32 bit app) then uninstall also that package.

I don't know how to say in other words.

bye

Now I get you and I assume that's why we couldn't understand each other before (because of the distros). If that package exists, which I really don't know, then I for sure will install it. I just didn't want to do it by hand.

The thing though, is that I think your lib32 package is indeed the equivalent to the emul packages in gentoo which get installed if you install any package that needs them. I think I found the one that would need to get updated for skype (static) to work:

app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-compat
emul-linux-x86 version of lib-compat, with the addition of a 32bit libgcc_s and the libstdc++ versions provided by gcc 3.3 and 3.4 for non-multilib systems.

However, as I said above, it might be a few days before the update comes as I have the latest version with the error described before.

Nice to follow the conversation and see how kubuntu is handling stuff However, are you running a static skype or does that version of kubuntu come with the required qt4 emulation?

I'm not running a 64 bit OS, but I know how to do it if in the future I will install it.

Ok, just checking, thanks for the patience and believe me, it'll get working soon, but it needs a few days for this stuff to settle in the gentoo world...although a few days, more like 2 days on average, is nothing still for a fix of that sort.

Besides, skype is still "hard masked" in portage and that tells us why I'm getting the issues, doesn't it?

no, skype is just running fine on 64 bit OS under other linux distributions, so it's not a skype issue apart not having a native 64 bit version

Dude, you don't understand. It's not like it doesn't work in Gentoo. It's in portage because at least a dev could make it work.

Now, they "hard-mask" a package when either it is in alpha, like this version is, or they still haven't had enough time to prove stability of it. In this case, they have to improve the emulation libraries to support this version of skype, which I assume is one of the first requiring 32bit emulation of qt4. Before they do that, they won't unmask it. Got it?

if you talk about gentoo I don't know anything about it, so assume that.

Second thing:
I'm trying to say to you that there is NO emulation at all with 32 bit apps under 64 bit, they just run @32 bit like under a 32 bit OS, this is the power of amd64 technology copied by Intel also.
32 bit emulation is done only by IA64 intel processor that they run natively on 64 bit, amd instead they run natively both 32 bit and 64 bit under a 64 bit OS, this is the difference.

So I don't know why you still continue to talk about emulation...

Yeah, I know that as I've been using a 64bit Gentoo install in AMD64 for the past 2 years.

I believe the word "emulation" refers to emulating the a 32bit environment for the apps that require it by providing the mechanism for them to find the 32bit libraries in /lib32 while the rest of the system works using /lib64. It doesn't emulate having 32 bits because, as you noted, the amd64 architecture already does this.

For further reading, here's what the Gentoo handbook has to say about having 32 and 64bit libraries:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-amd64-faq.xml#multilib

Also, I found a post initiated by an Ubuntu user, which doesn't add much to the above, but it gives some more insight,

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-55737...light-emul.html

I hope this clarifies all...

Pardon me interrupting your very interesting discussion, but libsigc is NOT part of Qt and it never was.

All you need to do is install 32 bit version of libsigc++2.0 and enjoy.

Yeah, the discussion was led quite a bit astray, didn't it?

I know libsigc is not part of qt at all. In gentoo, this 32bit library as I stated above seems to come from:

app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-compat
emul-linux-x86 version of lib-compat, with the addition of a 32bit libgcc_s and the libstdc++ versions provided by gcc 3.3 and 3.4 for non-multilib systems.

I may be wrong here, though. However, what I was arguing is if we get a new version of the qt libraries for 32 bit that support qt4, meaning, of this package:

app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-qtlibs
QT 2/3 libraries for emulation of 32bit x86 on amd64

Then I might not be needing the other package update. But upon second thought I believe it will be the same problem. In any case, all I need is that they update
app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-compat, if that's the one with the library required, and if in doing so they add qt4 compatibility to app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-qtlibs, so that I don't have to run static, so much the better.

NOTE:

The 64 bit version of this library comes from:

dev-libs/libsigc++-2.0.17 (/usr/lib64/libsigc-2.0.so.0 -> libsigc-2.0.so.0.0.0)

But I don't have any 32 bit version, as is obvious, and that should be provided by one of the emul packages in Gentoo. In other words, it's just a matter of waiting a while. Thanks for your interesting and insights.

I have a suggestion for packaging the 64-bit binary. Why not use static libraries for it, or at least depend on the ia32-libs package of our distributions, I'm thinking about debian mostly, and if any files are missing like sigc include it in the skype package somewhere or statically link it. It may not be a 64-bit binary, but it will work just as well on a 64-bit system, and that way we can apt-get it from non-free or from the skype repositories without having to jump through hoops to force-install a 32-bit package. Would this be too hard to implement? It would go a long way to reducing the complaints about lack of packages.

Regards,
Hesham

this is just done in the static version...

I understand, however what I'm suggesting is making actual packages that integrate with our systems just like the regular ones instead of tar.gz's and making sure that our systems have all the required libraries so that we don't have to answer questions on forums about where a particular library is and is not. If there is not official 64-bit build then make a 64-bit package that consists of a completely statically linked binary and be done with it.

libsigc++ is LGPL



You are wrong here, obviously. lib-compat doesn't provide libsigc, it provides older versions of libstdc (yes, there is a whopping two-letter difference that makes your claim incorrect).



Exactly. Bug your Gentoo guru to find or provide a package, or just download the 32 bit .so file somewhere.

I'm attempting to run Skype for Linux 1.4.0.58_alpha on Gentoo on AMD64 as well. I'd hoped the following might work:

Download these files located with rpmfind:
http://fedora.osmirror.nl/extras/5/i386/li...0.17-1.i386.rpm
http://fedora.osmirror.nl/extras/developme...-4.fc6.i386.rpm

Install the library files from the packages manually:


Add the 32-bit Qt4 libraries to the lib path:


Now "ldd skype" shows that the libraries are being found, but when I run the executable, I get the following error message:


AFAICT that's a Qt symbol, right? Any suggestions on where I might find another set of libraries for x86 that might be more likely to work?

Thanks!
screwtop

Don't hurt yourself unnecessarily. Just do the following:

1. unmask skype 1.4 alpha
2. emerge it while using the static flag
3. get http://fedora.osmirror.nl/extras/5/i386/li...0.17-1.i386.rpm
4. unpack it somewhere as described above
5. if needed add the new libdir into your LD_LIBRARY_PATh

Forget about a 32 bit version of qt - the static build of skype 1.4 works just fine.. so the only dependeny is the libsigc++ and we resolved that by getting the 32 bit version of it...

Hope this resolves any issues for gentoo/amd64 people

btw. any users with other distros should get the static version from skype and unpack it somewhere instead of the emerge procedure and do all the other steps as described above (in case someone was wondering)

cheers,

ohm314

Ah-ha, yes, the static Skype build was the way to go. Thanks! If anyone's wondering, you can get it directly from
http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-alpha-static
which is linked off
https://developer.skype.com/LinuxSkype

At last a guide into solving this issue; awesome. It not as easy to get a 32bit library when you have everything in 64bits, you know.

Anyway, I followed the above procedure and added the libraries to the required directories. Skype is even recognizing them, but it now errors with another issue:

/opt/skype/skype: /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.6/32/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.1' not found (required by /opt/skype/skype)
/opt/skype/skype: /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.6/32/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.4' not found (required by /opt/skype/skype)

Any idea what I could do to overcome this? I'd assume get libstdc++.so.6 compiled with the required version, but one thing is adding libraries, as I did above, rather than replacing them. In any case, any help is welcome.

Awesome, Skype is now working for me following the procedure above. I was having the latest problems due to a badly upgraded gcc, but I now took care of that.

Darn, Skype is looking good (similar to the osx version). Good work man, and I seem to have way less sound issues. Thanks berkus and the dev team.

It looks like your libstdc++.so.6 is too old. I had this on a Slackware 11 box using cxxlibs-6.0.3 that I upgraded to 6.0.8.

Andrew.

Thanks, but I already solved the problem as I posted above.

Just for the record: You were trying to install Qt 4.1, Skype requires Qt 4.2.