It was easy for me to copy "net-im/skype" to "/etc/portage" and copy the ebuild for 1.3.0.30-r1 to 1.3.0.37, then do "ebuild skype-1.3.0.37.ebuild digest" for the new ebuild, put "=net-im/skype-1.3.0.37 ~x86" into "/etc/portage/package.keywords", and finally "emerge skype". I tried a few things with it, and it sure is nice to have ALSA now. So far, most things I've tried work, including incoming and outgoing calls and bidirectional sound. I didn't see Gentoo's previous Skype beta before I found out about this one. I have an .asoundrc for ALSA to cause better mixing stuff via dmix, so not sure if that helps.) BUT making a test call caused it to say ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:801:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) The dmix plugin supports only playback stream then again when I temporarily moved .asoundrc out of the way, I couldn't hear myself in microphone in test call, but that was because I didn't set up ALSA settings correctly. I found the correct ALSA settings with alsamixer (both microphone capture and capture set to on and capture turned up maximum, as well as microphone boost) and did "alsactl store" (as root) and "/etc/init.d/alsasound restart" worked as expected to restore sound settings compatible with Skype and made sure it was in default runlevel. I'm still impatiently waiting for Skype call forwarding support, but for now, I think this beta is nice. If I figure out audio mixing for output while input working, that would be even nicer. Please someone do a version bump so others can test this version of Skype. I don't see a particuarily good reason to delete skype-1.3.0.30-r1.ebuild right now, but there could be lots, like the beta not existing any more, or people satisfied with the newer beta.
*** Bug 144766 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Bumped in portage, thanks for the notice.