Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?
On Sun, 22 June 2014, at 5:53 pm, Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com wrote: … without audio skype would lose its core functionality - i.e. making voice calls? I guess someone may only use it for IM chat, but that I would think is an edge use case. Most people I know would use it for voice and perhaps video calls. Microsoft migrated their entire IM network - MSN Messenger - to Skype. These users now have no choice but to use Skype for their text-only instant messaging - either that, or migrate to a different network again, but their friends are all on this one. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?
On 22 June 2014 21:51, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: On 22/06/2014 18:53, Mick wrote: Are you using PA and how would you suggest I go about installing and configuring it (if I must) for minimal interference with my audio usage? Why don't you rather peg skype at the last version know to work with alsa, and mask everything newer? I could do just that, but for how long? Eventually, older version(s) of skype could/would break and I will then be forced to upgrade. If it were me, I'd switch to PA because I wanted to, not because skype made me. And I don't think you'd be running any additional security risk - skype is rather likely to be riddled with bugs that never get fixed anyway... OK, my cynic side is showing, but you get the drift I've switched to PA and I'm now rebuilding umpteen packages inc. firefox and chromium! O_o The switch was mostly successful, except for: After a reboot all worked fine and the pulseaudio migration appeared to be uneventful. The morning after things went sideways. The HDMI sound device was selected as the default audio and not analogue sound was available. For some reason the default beep was loud enough to wake up the neighbours! PCM, headphones and other controls had disappeared and some new monitor-* controls were available. This was fixed by adding: load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,0 load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0 in /etc/pulse/default.pa I have not yet tried the microphone in Skype to see if the above combo is correct. This is what aplay and arecord show: $ aplay -l List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices card 0: MID [HDA Intel MID], device 0: 92HD73C1X5 Analog [92HD73C1X5 Analog] Subdevices: 0/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 $ arecord -l List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices card 0: MID [HDA Intel MID], device 0: 92HD73C1X5 Analog [92HD73C1X5 Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: MID [HDA Intel MID], device 2: 92HD73C1X5 Alt Analog [92HD73C1X5 Alt Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 $ aplay -L null Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture) pulse PulseAudio Sound Server default:CARD=MID HDA Intel MID, 92HD73C1X5 Analog Default Audio Device sysdefault:CARD=MID HDA Intel MID, 92HD73C1X5 Analog Default Audio Device front:CARD=MID,DEV=0 HDA Intel MID, 92HD73C1X5 Analog Front speakers surround40:CARD=MID,DEV=0 HDA Intel MID, 92HD73C1X5 Analog 4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers surround41:CARD=MID,DEV=0 HDA Intel MID, 92HD73C1X5 Analog 4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround50:CARD=MID,DEV=0 HDA Intel MID, 92HD73C1X5 Analog 5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers surround51:CARD=MID,DEV=0 HDA Intel MID, 92HD73C1X5 Analog 5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround71:CARD=MID,DEV=0 HDA Intel MID, 92HD73C1X5 Analog 7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0 HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0 HDMI Audio Output The other thing that puzzled me was that the second jack for the headphones is muted every time I re/start an application and the volume setting is zeroed - e.g. I start mplayer - no sound. I unmute the second headphone jack and raise the volume setting - sound is back. I stop and then start again mplayer - no sound. I unmute the second headphone jack - sound is back. and so on. I cannot understand why the second jack is muted. The first jack stays unmuted in each case. -- Regards, Mick
Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?
el 2014-06-22 a las 17:55 Rich Freeman escribió: For the simple case of one sound device with one application playing at a time alsa works just fine. and for more complex cases it also works fine. with dmix you can have several applications playing at the same time, and if you have more than one device, you only need a properly configured .asoundrc.
Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?
luis jure l...@internet.com.uy wrote: el 2014-06-22 a las 17:55 Rich Freeman escribió: For the simple case of one sound device with one application playing at a time alsa works just fine. and for more complex cases it also works fine. with dmix you can have several applications playing at the same time, and if you have more than one device, you only need a properly configured .asoundrc. I never got that to work, my soundcard does hardware mixing, so t6he software mixing will not work, so I had to stick with alsa and forget pulse as much as I could. -- Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is: How do you spend it? John Covici cov...@ccs.covici.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?
On 22/06/2014 18:53, Mick wrote: I was surprised to find that skype now has the pulseaudio flag set as a default. Well, that didn't really surprise me, but what did is that after I unset the pulseaudio flag and emerged skype-4.3.0.37, audio in skype no longer works. :-/ The skype website says that alsa is no longer supported without pulseaudio in their freshly cut Microsoft-owned code. Why is then the pulseaudio flag provided in portage, if without audio skype would lose its core functionality - i.e. making voice calls? I guess someone may only use it for IM chat, but that I would think is an edge use case. Most people I know would use it for voice and perhaps video calls. In any case, should I install pulseaudio? So far I had not missed it in my world to manage my audio needs. Looking at the wiki page: http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PulseAudio it seems awfully complicated to me, for something which for my purposes would be just a new 'alsamixer'. :p Are you using PA and how would you suggest I go about installing and configuring it (if I must) for minimal interference with my audio usage? Why don't you rather peg skype at the last version know to work with alsa, and mask everything newer? If it were me, I'd switch to PA because I wanted to, not because skype made me. And I don't think you'd be running any additional security risk - skype is rather likely to be riddled with bugs that never get fixed anyway... OK, my cynic side is showing, but you get the drift -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?
On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 12:53 PM, Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com wrote: The skype website says that alsa is no longer supported without pulseaudio in their freshly cut Microsoft-owned code. Why is then the pulseaudio flag provided in portage, if without audio skype would lose its core functionality - i.e. making voice calls? I guess someone may only use it for IM chat, but that I would think is an edge use case. I imagine that is the answer. If they give the option to disable it, then Gentoo is likely to provide it, since we live for edge use cases. :) it seems awfully complicated to me, for something which for my purposes would be just a new 'alsamixer'. :p It certainly is. One of these days I'll get around to migrating to it. For the simple case of one sound device with one application playing at a time alsa works just fine. Where it breaks down is when you have three sound devices and four applications using them, and you want to plug in a USB headset and have it just do the right thing. That isn't all that uncommon a scenario on the desktop (I use a USB headset for work on a Windows laptop all the time). Once you build all the framework to make that work, then it makes sense to just use it for everything, which is why Pulseaudio has basically taken over the Linux desktop. Rich
