what to use instead of skype?

[Simon]

The only multimedia package that can't be distributed by Ubuntu is
w32codecs, and you can find and download it in less time than using
one of these scripts.  Everything else is in the official multiverse
repositories, except for Skype, which I don't think is needed.  Back
when I first started with Ubuntu, I spent a lot of time figuring out
how to write /etc/asound.conf so I could use Skype with my usb audio
(in a webcam), and Skype's Linux audio wasn't just limited, it was
broken (per-call file handle leak).  If I knew I could have used
Windows messenger and Ekiga (then called Gnomemeeting), I would never
have touched Skype.  My belief now is that it's completely unneeded as
well, unless you're behind an extremely restrictive firewall, and SIP
isn't working for you.

I frown on using scripts to automate installation of extra packages -
one only has to look at the wiki to know what to install by hand.
Basically, a couple of gstreamer metapackages, libxine-extracodecs,
flashplugin-nonfree, and then download and install w32codecs, and run
/usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh.  Also useful is
ffmpeg2theora for transcoding :)
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