Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Debian Squeeze for my Parents - Skype, Alsa, OSS

v 0.2
18 Oct 11

I was showing my Father how to use Skype on Debian - he was using a headphone / mic setup plugged into the front of the computer - when I discovered that despite the headphones working, the microphone was not.

I played with settings in Skype, then decided to see what the System could provide.  I found settings for "Front Microphone" and "Front Microphone Boost" in the Gnome Alsa Mixer and activated them.  I then found that I could use the microphone, but still Skype refused to use it.

Then I started to wonder.  Does Skype use ALSA?  Or is it wedded to OSS?  I searched the package database and found a package "alsa-oss".  On a whim I loaded it and then all was well.  I cannot say for sure that this fixed things, but it certainly seemed to do the trick.



Later ........

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