Saturday, February 7, 2009

Skype with Ubuntu Woes

I spent a long time trying to fix this issue of skype with ubuntu ibex. Seems to have been fixed now after following the steps described in a comment at the following link (the comment is posted below):

http://tips4nongeeks.blogspot.com/2009/01/skype-sound-problem-in-ubuntu.html#comment-form

I'd encourage you to "try" this - I don't have much technical insight into why this works, so it might not work for your case. For mine it did. I am using Acer Aspire laptop.

Hello friends,

after messing with commands and stuff around to try to
solve the famous skype echo, I finally solved this pain in the ass!!
for intrepid ibex ubuntu.

If you follow this step by step your skype should work, at least I garantee that you will learn something.

so first of all don’t use the commands to remove any package
from your ubuntu specially pulseaudio, is useless and you will have an other pain in the ass trying to find what package to install:

1) for the audio playback echo (when trying to make a call),

-go to the small skype logo located in the bottom left corner
when you are loged in skype-> go to options-> sound devices

- change all default options to “pulse”.

Now you should be able to make a call test without the message
‘audio playback problem’ or stuff like that.

And you will have the next typical echo that your microphone
will not be working.

2) for the microphone echo (im using a headset):

-go to the upper panel in your window where is all the application-places-system options, in the right upper corner you will find a small speaker icon-> right click with the mouse-> open volume control-> preferences-> select all options specially those like headset- capture-capture1-capture2- input source- etc. those are not working !!!!

-now in the volume control ->label “options”-> change default options for “Mic” and “Digital Mic1″.

-in the next label “recording”-> maximum volume for all the stuff.

- The device should be “HDA alsa mixer”

-finally confirm in ->system-> preferences-> sound preferences, that the sound capture is set to “HDA analog (ALSA)” similar to the previous point.

Now you can try to record something with the ’sound recorder program’
it should work.

And the best Skype should work, no shity messages no shity problems (although when I use the inbuild mic instead of my headset the sound is so so).

I hope my suggestions are useful.

best of luck,

bye.