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On 03/03/12 21:32, tom wrote:
>
> AT the bottom left of the skype window there is blue 'S' with a down
> arrow on it - this is the main menu click on it and go to options (ctrl
> o) and then sound devices.
Although I my Skype happily says "Pulse Audio Server (local)" and offers
no other sound devices ;)
I think possibly best to try and learn how to diagnose these problems
with the tools available rather than random 3rd party apps that add more
layers into the mix.
For what it is worth the latest GNOME sound settings tool in Debian
testing is the best I've seen for deciphering the rather confusing list
of sound devices Linux often presents.
In my case the "Input" tab shows the sound card and the webcam have
microphones, and selecting webcam lets me see that the microphone on my
webcam is working.
Still more confusing than it ought to be, but at least you don't need to
know ALSA back to front to figure out what is plugged in where.
On the other hand Webcam microphones are often in the wrong place to
avoid picking up unwanted noise, I pondered it for a while and settled
on headset with microphone as the best for voice chat. Although I need
to get decent set of speakers to use when we want more than one person
on the conversation our end.
Some Microphones need the "Mic Boost" on to be heard.
Typically the Microphone device is presented as the USB webcam name.
Neil said it doesn't say "C310" in his lsusb output, but I missed the
post where he posted the output of lsusb for us to read.
So.......
lsusb shows on mine...
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0471:0311 Philips (or NXP) PCVC740K ToUcam Pro [pwc]
... rest snipped ...
cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [ICH5 ]: ICH4 - Intel ICH5
Intel ICH5 with AD1980 at irq 17
1 [U0x4710x311 ]: USB-Audio - USB Device 0x471:0x311
USB Device 0x471:0x311 at usb-0000:00:1d.0-2, full
speed
Note the card 1 is the same USB device number as the webcam. This is the
clearly the microphone for my webcam since it doesn't have speakers.
cat /proc/asound/devices
Will indicate in a terribly cryptic way what features are available from
sound devices. Although hard to decipher you can unplug USB devices and
see how it changes!
Beyond this you disappear into the desktop management of the sound which
usually involves overly bewildering selections tools, and the more you
fiddle the harder it gets to decipher. I never understood KDEs
presentation of this.
Worth checking if you have a .asoundrc file in your home folder, and
renaming it, as in most cases it is no longer needed.
Also if you think it is the settings, or past settings, for one user
that are wrong, add a test user with default settings and see if you can
make it work for them first, as that can eliminate a lot of "I fiddled",
although it may help to either logout and kill all your old processes
before logging in, or reboot, as some sound daemons carry on running
between sessions (always thought this a bad idea).
Simon
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