Skype has some ready-made packages for specific distributions:
* Feisty Fawn (7.04)
* Debian Etch
* Mepis
* Xandros
* Fedora 7
Fedora Core 6
* OpenSUSE 10+
* Mandriva
These packages are actually not very up-to-date, as some of the distro version numbers show. Even so, you might want to try the existing package for your distro first. If your distro is not listed, or your version is much newer, then you can go for the generic Skype packages, which are:
* Dynamic
* Static
* Static OSS
The difference between static and dynamic is that a static build has all the functions it needs compiled into itself (resulting in a larger file size), while the dynamic version will use the existing function libraries installed on your system. Dynamic libraries allow for updates to generic functions without having to recompile the application. Static functions can only be updated by re-compilation. But then again, a new bug or some missing library on the system will not affect a static executable.
OSS is the older audio sub-system of Linux, the other packages rely on the newer ALSA audio system.
----------
T74marcell
Arch Linux
