Getting Skype on the Aspire One

As many of you will have noticed, the Aspire One comes without Skype installed.

Rumour has it the decision not to include it as standard comes down to a question of cost. Skype is free if you download it for personal use, however, if a computer manufacturer wants to install it as OEM software, there’s a licence fee to pay, which would have bumped up the cost of the Aspire One and would have made Skype the only paid-for software on the machine.

Don’t know if this is true, but if it is, hats off to Acer for saving us all some unnecessary cash.

However, that leaves us with the problem of getting Skype on the Aspire One.

Got a mail from Daniel who managed to get Skype installed on his Aspire One just the way he wanted and I thought I’d post it here so that you could do the same.

First off, you have to download and install Skype 2.0 for Linux. You can find it here. (http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/)

To launch it, you’ll need to enable the advance mode on the Acer Aspire One that allows the user to “go behind” the default GUI (graphic user interface) and open up the main Linpus features.

“To do this go to Files > My Documents to open the File Manager. Then go to File > Terminal.

The Linpus Linus uses Xfce, so use “xfce-setting-show” to get the Xfce Settings Manager.

Click on Desktop to get to the Desktop Preferences and choose the Behavior tab.

Now click under Menus the Show desktop menu on right click option and close the window.

This setting will allow you to bring up the normal desktop menu when you right click somewhere on the desktop. The Desktop Menu contains many more options than the limited user interface on the Aspire One.

Under System you will find Add/Remove Software which is the Red Hat/Fedora Packet Manager. You will need your password (the one you set up during installation) to access it. Now you can go nuts and install programs. It’s a pretty big selection and the files will be downloaded (you need internet access) and installed for you. If it’s an application you usually find it later in the Desktop Menu.

That will put it on your desktop but if you want it in the “Connect” area, then you’ll need to edit a XML file located in:

/home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml

Opened it and look for the line concerning Skype:

Just delete the exclamation point and the dashes, reboot and there it is, the Skype logo in all its glory in the Connect Area!

A screenshot of the Homepage: