Skype on openSUSE 13.1

I now have Skype working, more or less, on one machine with openSUSE 13.1. I used the instructions at the openSUSE Support Database. The important things to realize here are: (1) Skype does not work out-of-the-box in openSUSE 13.1, but (2) it may start "working" (in a manner of speaking), if you install the right packages and run the Skype binary in the right way.

Update

On another machine where Skype was running fine on openSUSE 12.3, it stopped working (predictably) after I upgraded the machine to 13.1 using zypper dup. I reinstalled Skype, but the behavior was different than on the machine mentioned above. Skype would run, but after successful login it would crash with the following:

*** Error in `/usr/lib/skype/skype': double free or corruption (!prev): 0xec14e1e0 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/libc.so.6(+0x6dfd3)[0xf29a5fd3]
/lib/libc.so.6(+0x7418a)[0xf29ac18a]
/lib/libc.so.6(+0x74dcc)[0xf29acdcc]
/usr/lib/skype/skype(+0xbfaeba)[0xf6863eba]
[0x61776574]
======= Memory map: ========
de1ff000-de200000 ---p 00000000 00:00 0
...
... on and on, page after page of similar lines
...

Adding MALLOC_CHECK_=0 to the Skype command-line was enough to get it to run. However, I was no longer able to "Allow Skype to automatically adjust my mixer levels", because it would automatically set the microphone level to 100%, causing lots of noise and distortion. So I had to uncheck this option and set my microphone level manually. Sigh.

Overall conclusion

Avoid using Skype under Linux, if at all possible.