How To Install Skype on Debian 12/11/10

How can I install Skype on Debian 12/11/10?. Skype is the most popular multi-platform application that powers business communication, from audio and video calls, online chats, and screen sharing between computers, mobile devices, and tablets. Many employees, freelancers, and consultants rely heavily on Skype to ensure there is efficient communication during project execution.

This guide will walk you through the installation of Skype on Debian12/11/10 Linux system. Since Skype is a proprietary application, the package is not available on Debian repositories. We will install from official Debian package or from Snap.

Install Skype on Debian from .deb package

The easiest and quickest way of installing Skype on Debian 10 is by downloading the latest package from the Downloads page.

Install wget if not present in your system.

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install wget

Then use wget to download the latest .deb package.

wget https://go.skype.com/skypeforlinux-64.deb

After the download is complete, install the package using dpkg or apt command.

sudo apt install -f ./skypeforlinux-64.deb

You should get installation output similar to one shown.

This installation will add apt repository to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-stable.list.

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-stable.list
deb [arch=amd64] https://repo.skype.com/deb stable main

So installed package can be updated by running.

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y upgrade

To uninstall Skype with apt, run the command below.

$ sudo apt remove skypeforlinux 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  skypeforlinux
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 56 not upgraded.
After this operation, 252 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 134612 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing skypeforlinux (8.47.0.59) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.62) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.31.4-3) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.23-4) ...

Install Skype on Debian using Snap

Start by installing snapd which is REST API daemon service that runs on your Linux system to manage snap packages (“snaps“).

sudo apt -y install snapd

Once snapd is installed, use snap to install Skype on Debian 11/10/9:

$ sudo snap install skype --classic
2021-10-31T23:44:54Z INFO Waiting for automatic snapd restart...
skype 8.77.0.97 from Skype✓ installed

$ snap list
Name               Version                     Rev    Tracking       Publisher   Notes
bare               1.0                         5      latest/stable  canonical✓  base
core18             20211015                    2246   latest/stable  canonical✓  base
gnome-3-28-1804    3.28.0-19-g98f9e67.98f9e67  161    latest/stable  canonical✓  -
gtk-common-themes  0.1-59-g7bca6ae             1519   latest/stable  canonical✓  -
skype              8.77.0.97                   187    latest/stable  skype✓      -
snapd              2.52.1                      13640  latest/stable  canonical✓  snapd

Launch Skype on Debian Linux

Now that you have installed Skype on Debian, you can launch it from CLI or Applications launcher.

Follow standard setup process to configure and use Skype on Debian 10 / Debian 11.

Conclusion

You have learned the various ways of installing Skype on your Debian system. Check out other Debian articles.

• How To Install VirtualBox on Debian
• How To Install Wine on Debian
• Add Debian 10 Buster official repositories to sources.list
• Install Docker and Docker Compose on Debian