For my own convenience and people I made a patched version of the Skype client for Linux version 4.2.0.13, which can work in the current conditions and does not require updating to a newer one. What exactly is fixed there I will not say, you can find a solution on the network yourself. Those who are interested can see the differences between binary executable files.

Why was this done

It's no secret that with the release of version 4.3.0.37 Skype dropped support for linux configurations without pulseaudio. This state of affairs didn’t suit me very much, because pulseaudio creates hissing when taking the sound from the microphone on my computers. Therefore pure alsa is my choice.

After some searching, a way was found to get around the update requirement. I will not describe the method itself, so that it lasts longer.

Where to get

UPD: there was ppa, but it was deleted due to violation of launchpad rules.

Links to deb-files:
ge.tt
Yandex.Disk
MEGA
Google Drive
Backup link

For compatibility, the versions in packages are changed to 4.3.0.37 so that they do not update themselves if you have ubuntu trusty and the partner repository is connected, the program itself is inside version 4.2 .0.13.

What will happen next

It can be seen that the current owner of Skype does not care about his users on the linux platform and will struggle with such corrections of the program he controls, so we can expect that this version may ask for updates in the future. I hope I can find a way around future defenses.

Are there any alternatives

As it was noted more than once on the Habré, there are alternatives to skype, but so far they are not very ready, or they are not available on all platforms. I myself hope for the Tox project .
I did not like Google hangouts due to the lack of a separate program for linux (I did not watch it for other platforms), hence its too much gluttony in terms of resources.
Viber requires a smartphone to activate the program.
We can conclude that while there is no alternative to skype (with the same features and platform support).

Conclusion

I hope that microsoft will heed the requests of its users on linux and release an updated version of skype with support for alsa and pulseaudio (as it was in version 4.2.0.13) and I would not have to look for new ways to circumvent the limitations of the old version.

UPD: Habrauser bvn13 posted a link to the petition to add alsa support in future versions of skype for linux.

UPD: A selection of portable patched versions for windows.

UPD: A wrapper was made for oss to replace the pulseaudio library with calls to oss. Maybe someone will do the same for alsa.

UPD: Recommendation on how to start Skype 4.3 through the apulse layer from the user safinaskar

I installed Skype 4.3 with the apulse program that emulates pulseaudio ( github.com/i-rinat/apulse , habrahabr.ru/post/241045 ) and everything works. If you have a 64-bit OS, then build with the -m32 option or just build in a 32-bit chroot (in any case, these methods worked for me in Debian). In other words, a program that emulates pulseaudio already exists, and it's great! It is written by our Russian developer Rinat Ibragimov ( github.com/i-rinat ) just to circumvent the situation with Skype.

A compiled deb package with integrated apulse skype 4.3 , tested on Ubuntu 14.04.