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For anyone interested in installing Skype on Ubuntu linux and making it not look like shit, here’s how I did it (ubuntu breezy + gnome, that is).

Download and install Skype using dpkg,

$ wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-deb
$ sudo dpkg -i skype_1.2.0.18-2_i386.deb

Go ahead and launch Skype from the Applications/Internet menu (or by typing skype on the console) and notice how ugly it looks while shaking your head in dissapointment. Now close it and prepare for its extreme makeover.

Qt is a cross platform development framework on which Skype is dependent and version 3.2 should already be installed. You will however need to install the qtconfig manager, a theme called ‘polymer’, and using qtconfig, apply said theme. Unless, of course, you are into the ugly look, in which case I urge you to avoid reading on.

$ sudo apt-get install qt3-qtconfig
$ wget http://www.informatik.tu-cottbus.de/~mkrause/debian/polymer/polymer_0.3.2-1_i386.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i polymer_0.3.2-1_i386.deb

When dpkg is finished its dance, launch the qtconfig program in the following manner,

$ qtconfig

Other than making sure you select ‘Polymer’ as the GUI Style under the Appearance tab, you are free tweak things to your heart’s content. I set my font to 9pt sans-serif.

Launch Skype again for the reveal and say a quiet thank-you to these guides:

• Ubuntu wiki: SkypeHowto
• Ubuntu wiki: QtGnome

How have I managed to avoid Skype for this long, I wonder.

Torn as I now am between my iMac and my laptop (Ubuntu linux), I invariably find myself using both: OS X at the desk, Ubuntu on the couch. My brief tenure in linuxland taught me to embrace the CLI (Command Line Interface), and upon returning to mactopia, I find I use the CLI almost exclusively. (That and VIM. I decided early on that rather than waste time learning yet another GUI editor, I’d take the opportunity to learn VIM and promptly fell in love. I’m typing this in VIM right now, even as my TextMate icon stares up at me from the dock.) For me, Linux and Darwin are sufficiently similar that I’m at home on either and I’ve come to respect their subtle differences.

That said, one thing I really liked about the default bash terminal in Ubuntu was its color, so I sought to bring this feature over to my OS X Terminal. Using ls with color makes things faster—colors can tell you about files in ways that ls -F never could. To enable this in OS X (bash), you’ll need to add some options to your .profile:

export CLICOLOR=1
export TERM=xterm-color

The first line turns on color, and the second ensures that your terminal is declared as color capable. While this will work as advertised, it won’t necessarily look very good if you use a dark background. By default, directories are listed in blue, and while this looks good in Ubuntu it’s just too dark on the Mac. For those of us who rock a black background, you might want to change the ls colors.

export LSCOLORS=gxfxcxdxbxegedabagacad  # cyan directories

In the above example, I’m using cyan for directories; this is a fair compromise and looks nice in both OS X and Ubuntu. If you want to know about each of the color codes above, they’re listed in the ls manual (man ls).

For the complete linux effect on OS X, a green prompt will also be necessary. Without getting in the sordid details of customizing your prompt (it’s a long and arduous tale that I’ll save for another article), I offer this:

export PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

When we put it all together, we get a comfortable and portable CLI that looks quite nice, no matter where you’re logging in from.

# colors
export CLICOLOR=1
export TERM=xterm-color
export LSCOLORS=gxgxcxdxbxegedabagacad  # cyan directories
export PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '