install skype:

wget -O skype-install.deb http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-deb

sudo aptitude install libc6:i386 libqt4-dbus:i386 libqt4-network:i386 libqt4-xml:i386 libqtcore4:i386 libqtgui4:i386 libqtwebkit4:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libx11-6:i386 libxext6:i386 libxss1:i386 libxv1:i386 libssl1.0.0:i386 libpulse0:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386

sudo dpkg -i skype-install.deb

sudo apt-get install libxcursor1:i386
sudo apt-get install libpulse0:i386

sudo killall pulseaudio && sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio paman pavumeter pavucontrol && sudo mv /etc/asound.conf /etc/asound.conf-bak && rm ~/.pulse-cookie && rm -r ~/.pulse

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

pulseaudio --start

sudo killall pulseaudio && sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio paman pavumeter pavucontrol && sudo mv /etc/asound.conf /etc/asound.conf-bak && rm ~/.pulse-cookie && rm -r ~/.pulse

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'paman' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'pavucontrol' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'pavumeter' is not installed, so not removed
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio* libcanberra-pulse* pulseaudio*
  pulseaudio-module-bluetooth* pulseaudio-module-x11* pulseaudio-utils*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 6 to remove and 12 not upgraded.
After this operation, 6,564 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] yes
(Reading database ... 166983 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio:amd64 (0.10.31-3+nmu4+b1) ...
Removing libcanberra-pulse:amd64 (0.30-2.1) ...
Removing pulseaudio-module-x11 (5.0-13) ...
Removing pulseaudio-module-bluetooth (5.0-13) ...
Removing pulseaudio (5.0-13) ...
Purging configuration files for pulseaudio (5.0-13) ...
Removing pulseaudio-utils (5.0-13) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.0.2-5) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u1) ...
mv: cannot stat ‘/etc/asound.conf’: No such file or directory

restart system.

fix seems to be required to start skype with pulseaudio 4 when sound is distorted or absent:

env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 skype %U

gnome menu entry to be updated using: Some systems require 60

sudo sed -i 's/^Exec=.*/Exec=env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 skype %U/' /usr/share/applications/skype.desktop

if skype doesn't start automatically with system, it needs to be added to “Startup Applications”.