Skype: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2
 

I am running 2.6.30.5-43.fc11.x86_64 on my Desktop computer. I have installed the skype rpm package. When I try and run skype, I get the following error message.

skype: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I looked in usr/lib and usr/lib64 and could not find the file anywhere. But, I have the package alsa-lib.x86_64 installed from the yum repository, which is supposed to include libasound.so.2

There seems to be significant trouble with this library with many applications from what I have seen from my searches. Anyone have an idea how I can fix this problem so I can load skype?

I figured it out!

I used 'ldd /usr/bin/skype' in terminal to look up all the dependencies skype needed to run, then used yum and rpm to install all of the packages. Now it works!

How did you install Skype in the first place? I just wonder why the Skype installer didn't complain about a missing library!?! Though it is certainly possible to use Skype without sound for simple chatting (I had it that way once on a system with a broken audio sub system).

I used yum to install skype, which now that I think about it is very strange that it didn't automatically install all of the necessary dependencies.