Skype is not available in the default configured repositories of Ubuntu so an alternate is downloading a deb package from skype and installing it but as i am an apt-get fan i would recommend adding the repositories listed below and then using
# sudo apt-get install skype
But you need to Add a Repository using the commands below before using apt-get if there is no command listed for your distro goto Medibuntu
- Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope"
wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/jaunty.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
- Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex"
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/intrepid.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d medibuntu.list
- Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron"
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
Once you have added the repository add GPG Key using
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update
And you are done now you can install skype using apt-get :)