CentOS - Mar 2008 - Skype on CentOS 5 - my microphone settings are incorrect

Note: The Wiki for Skype needs a tiny update.
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Skype
It's not a Beta now. Last night, I downloaded and
installed skype-2.0.0.63-centos.i586.rpm
The Skype web site calls this a "Gold" release.

I'm having the same problem I had when I tried to use the Skype Beta.
It's not picking up audio from the microphone. The hardware works
fine, when I'm using MS Windows XP, but I hate to use Windows and
I use Linux, except when I want to use Skype or MS FrontPage.

I believe the problem has to do with a configuration setting. I use the
GNOME Desktop. 

In System > Preferences > Sound > Audio Conferencing > Sound Capture
there are five (5) choices: (a) CS46xx (b) ALSA (c) OSS (d) test sound
(e) silence and I get the following results when trying to test them:
(a) test and dies (b) test and dies (c) testing pipeline and I can stop
the test OK. I suspect OSS is the one to select (d) test sound = OK (e)
silence

In System > Preferences > Volume Control for Capture, I changed the
Device to OSS Mixer, but that doesn't cure the problem.

Selected as ALSA, I've tried it with and without the 20 dB mic. boost.

BTW, when I disabled the onboard Sound Chip and installed a very
inexpensive generic sound card in this Dell Dimension 2400 box, the
quality of the sound improved quite a bit.

Any suggestions on what configuration settings I should try, or any
other ideas, will be greatly appreciated! TIA!

Lanny Marcus a ?crit :
> Note: The Wiki for Skype needs a tiny update.
> http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Skype
> It's not a Beta now. Last night, I downloaded and
> installed skype-2.0.0.63-centos.i586.rpm
> The Skype web site calls this a "Gold" release.
Much closed source software has a "Gold" release.
> 
> I'm having the same problem I had when I tried to use the Skype Beta.
> It's not picking up audio from the microphone. The hardware works
> fine, when I'm using MS Windows XP, but I hate to use Windows and
> I use Linux, except when I want to use Skype or MS FrontPage.
> 
> I believe the problem has to do with a configuration setting. I use the
> GNOME Desktop. 
> 
> In System > Preferences > Sound > Audio Conferencing > Sound
Capture
> there are five (5) choices: (a) CS46xx (b) ALSA (c) OSS (d) test sound
> (e) silence and I get the following results when trying to test them:
> (a) test and dies (b) test and dies (c) testing pipeline and I can stop
> the test OK. I suspect OSS is the one to select (d) test sound = OK (e)
> silence
Fire up a console and launch 'alsamixer'. Check your microphone settings
there.

In Skype, there's a small utility with a voice server, where you can 
check your sound configuration easily.

Cheers,

Niki

On 15 March 2008, Niki Kovacs contact at kikinovak.net  wrote:
<snip>
>Much closed source software has a "Gold" release.
>Fire up a console and launch 'alsamixer'. Check your microphone
settings
>there.
Card: Sound Fusion CS46xx                                                    ?
? Chip: Cirrus Logic CS4298 rev 3,Cirrus Logic CS4298 rev 3                    ?
? View: [Playback] Capture  All                                                ?
? Item: Master                                                                 ?
?                                                                              ?
?    ????     ????      ????     ????               ????              ????     ?
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????     ?
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????     ?
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????    
>
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????    
>
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????    
>
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????    
>
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????    
>
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????    
>
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????     ?
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????              ????     ?
?    ????     ????      ?  ?     ?  ?               ????    pre 3D    ????     ?
?    ????     ????      ????     ????     ????      ????              ????     ?
?    ?OO?     ?OO?                        ?MM?      ?OO?              ?OO?     ?
?    ????     ????                        ????      ????              ????     ?
?  100<>100 100<>100      0        0              100<>100    
100<>100   ?
? < Master >Headphon  3D Contr 3D Contr 3D Contr    PCM    PCM Out    Line
?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Niki: I don't see anything for the microphone there! 

Note: When alsamixer came up in the terminal window, the only view option seems
to be for
Playback, which is shown above. Should it be possible for me to get a view of
Capture too?
How?
>In Skype, there's a small utility with a voice server, where you can 
>check your sound configuration easily.
I use their test robot to test, but when I try it with Skype for Linux, when
they
are going to playback what I speak into the microphone, there's one beep and
then
almost immediately, a 2nd beep. When I do that while using Skype for windows, I
can hear
what I speak into the microphone.

I get the Digest version of the ML but I will check back, online, for further
ideas today!
Thank you for your very quick reply!  Lanny

On 15 March 2008, Niki Kovacs contact at kikinovak.net  wrote:
<snip>
>Fire up a console and launch 'alsamixer'. Check your microphone
settings
>there.
Niki: After using alsamixer, which did not permit me to see anything about the
microphone,
I switched to KDE and I used kmix. The microphone seems to be set properly,
according to kmix.
I hope you have more ideas! TIA, Lanny

On Sat, 15 Mar 2008, Lanny Marcus wrote:
> Note: The Wiki for Skype needs a tiny update.
> http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Skype
> It's not a Beta now. Last night, I downloaded and
> installed skype-2.0.0.63-centos.i586.rpm
> The Skype web site calls this a "Gold" release.
Thank you so much for reporting. However, it would be appreciated if you 
could report improvements to the wiki on the centos-docs at centos.org so 
reports like this one do not get overlooked.

I just made your proposed changes.

Thanks again,
-- 
--   dag wieers,  dag at centos.org,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]

On 15 March 2008, Dag Wieers dag at centos.org wrote:
<snip>
>Thank you so much for reporting. However, it would be appreciated if
>you could report improvements to the wiki on the centos-docs at
>centos.org so reports like this one do not get overlooked.
>I just made your proposed changes.
>Thanks again,
Hi Dag: You're welcome and I will try to remember to post any Wiki
updates I come up with on centos-docs in the future! Lanny

On Sunday, 16 March 2008, Niki Kovacs <contact at kikinovak.net>
wrote:>
<snip>

Niki: Thank you, for everything you wrote! Question: Last night, for
reasons completely unrelated to this problem with the microphone audio,
I downloaded the .iso for the Knoppix Live CD and I have that CD. Can I
troubleshoot this microphone audio settings problem, with one or more
utilities on the Knoppix Live CD? If so, which ones?
> One other thing. You mentioned several mixer apps, IIRC. I've seen some
> Linux installs of the kitchen sink type, where people installed just 
> everything available on the DVD. Result: you get everything from GNOME, 
> KDE, XFCE, plus any other available window manager. As a result, you 
> also get several concurring sound systems: ALSA, OSS, Arts, and IIRC 
> there's something called 'esound'. It's a bit like folks
installing LPR
> and CUPS at the same time. When you have several pieces of software 
> attempting to talk to the same device, there will inevitably be conflicts.
My belief is that what you wrote is dead accurate, with regard to many things
and once I get the Sound working properly, I will try to get rid of what I know
I am not using.

However, with regard to web browsers, as one example, I find that having both
Firefox and
Konqueror is necessary at this time. Firefox, with the settings as liberal as I
can make them, does not
work properly for me, when I access Gmail on the web. Konqueror, which Gmail
shows is not fully supported
and does not allow access to all Gmail features on the web, works much better
than Firefox there.

A former Supervisor and Colleague, who uses Ubuntu, has no problem using Gmail
on the web, with a later version of Firefox.

OT: From what you and Dag wrote about Firefox 3, I will upgrade from CentOS 5 to
5.2, when I can get the DVD!
> I've been a long-time Slackware user, and Slackware has one guiding 
> principle: KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid!
I respect anyone who uses Slackware and I believe strongly in the
"KISS" idea.
> 
> On my CentOS desktop, I have *one* desktop environment: XFCE. One sound 
> system: ALSA. And one mixer app: alsamixer (I uninstalled xfce4-mixer).
I install both GNOME (which I use 95% of the time) and KDE when I do clean
installs. Once, I had
GNOME corrupted, and I used KDE, temporarily, to keep going. KDE has many many
more things than GNOME.
I always use K3b and there are some other KDE Applications and Utilities that I
use occasionally.
> So what you could do to make things easier: establish which sound system 
> and sound mixer app you are using. And then get rid of the unused ones.
After I find the solution to the problem, I will try to do that!

It is my understanding and belief that Front Ends (GUI or Text based) that
modify Linux Configuration files
may do so in different ways. If the file is simple, I modify with a Text editor.
One experience I had, with
system-config-display (?) was that it said it was writing a new Xorg file, but,
in fact, it did not. Someone else posted
in this ML and Johnny or Jim said to use the command with -- rewrite or
something I can't remember, as I write this.
One of the things about Webmin, is that supposedly one can use it to modify
Configuration files, or do it manually with a
Text editor, without screwing things up.

I will keep working on this microphone audio problem and if I cannot solve it,
then I will post in the alsa-user at lists.sourceforge.net
as Anne suggested yesterday, in 2 or 3 days!

Thanks again! Lanny