I switched to running the Sidux distribution not too long ago, at the same time I upgraded to a 64 bit AMD machine. It's my first foray into Debian based distros and has been pretty nice until I went to install Skype. I won't regurgitate the other message boards, but in a nutshell here was my solution:

• Add Medibuntu repository to my apt sources. I had to manually select the hardy.list file to download since there were no sid.list files.
• Install ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk packages via apt. May need other ia32-libs-* as well.
• Update apt and install Skype package via apt. NOT by downloading from Skype website

I use Pidgin IM with a Skype plugin package, so I have a single contacts list. Bummer is I have to have Skype running in the background so it can communicate via dbus, but it's better than nothing.