Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Snail · Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Posts: 255

My mic/sound working at all but so poorly reminds me of a driver issue I had using Win 7 ultimate on this same laptop. The mic lost gain all of a suddden. It was not nearly as bad as it is with Fatdog, it was still usable but I had to speak very loudly to use Skype. Googling revealed that the problem was a driver update pushed by Lenovo and a roll back to the previous driver was a total fix. Since this proves that there is at least one very bad "official" driver out there, presumably written by Conexant, maybe the Linux driver is also a dud? Is there another driver i could try?

Snail · Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Posts: 255

Hi Ibidem,

Thanks for your reply. Can you clarify? I do not understand your instruction.

chapchap70 · Posted: Fri 21 Jun 2013, 16:49 Post subject: Re: Sound card issues again

Snail · Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Posts: 255

Hi chapchap70,

Skype seems to be working fine. The camera is also fine. Note, I'm using the camera and mic that are built-in to this laptop, not a separate camera. The sound problem isn't confined to Skype, mhWaveEdit has the exact same problem. So either there is a mic driver problem or I'm doing something wrong . I'm hoping the latter but have no idea at the moment.

I'm not familiar with VLC. The Fatdog version doesn't appear to offer sound recording. There is no sign of a record button.

smokey01 · Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 1895 Location: South Australia

chapchap70 · Posted: Fri 21 Jun 2013, 21:48 Post subject:

After opening VLC, click on "Media" then "Open Capture Device". If you click "Play" on the bottom of the window, you should be able to see yourself via your built in camera and any noise you make should play through the computer speakers if your mic is working.

The dropdown menu by the "Play" button should have a "Convert" choice. That will enable to save a recording as a file.

I don't have to enter anything into my "Device Selection" fields but the defaults on mine are:

Video : dev/video0 (I believe dev/video is a symlink to dev/video0)
Audio is hw:0,0

Edit: If you have access to a USB webcam, VLC should see this as dev/video1 and hw:0,1

I would think that if the USB webcam plays in Skype with sound, than that would confirm that it is a driver issue with your built in mic.

Sage · Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 4847 Location: GB

Surprising to see so many folks still using Skype since it was acquired by M$, especially as so much work and advice has been given previously on (P)SIP. Maybe one can't stop GCHQ and the CIA from intercepting video footage of one's beautiful countenance (and use it match with CCTV coverage?!), but I'd prefer that it didn't get added to the Hanford server farm repository...

DC · Posted: Sat 22 Jun 2013, 03:29 Post subject: Num Lock

Hi everbody,

Could somebody remind me how to set the numlock to on at boot up

thanks

DC

Snail · Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Posts: 255

Thanks to you all for the help so far. VLC records and plays video just fine, although not great for rapid movement on my system. Plays both video at full speed and sound from .wmv file and sound from .mp3 files. Sound is not recorded, or at least not at audible levels.

So still no success with the mic. Seems pretty certain now that it's a driver issue.

Help! I really don't want to have to use Windows on this system any more, Quite apart from the distasteful ethics of MS, the OS is just crawling now. Setting up Fatdog wasn't all plain sailing but it was a breeze compared with trying and failing to delouse win 7 and keeping it deloused will be an ongoing battle even if I succeed this time. All except this mic issue that is.

Snail · Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Posts: 255

There is a Numlockx pet in the package manager.

DC · Posted: Sat 22 Jun 2013, 05:18 Post subject:

Hi Snail,

I know about the pet,
But I've a memory of fatdog asking do you want numlock in the start configuration. Implying the function is built in. I can't find any reference to it. In other words how do you rerun the start configuration?

thanks

DC

Snail · Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Posts: 255

It works! I feel really dumb. I didn't realise that for sound capture, the initial alsamixer screen is useless. I just discovered that hitting "F4" you get an entirely new screen that had most of the mic sliders at zero. I just set them all to 100% and now it works.

In my defense, the alsamixer interface is just horrid. What for instance is the function of the mic slider on the playback screen for heavens' sake? And hitting the speaker icon on the taskbar opens alsamixer not maximised, which hides the two RHS sliders, and there is no slider at the bottom to indicate that there is anything more to see. I've wasted hours on this crap and it was completely unnecessary.

Snail · Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Posts: 255

Hi DC,

Sorry, I can't find it myself.

Why can't every pup developer just implement upgrades to the Lucid 528 user interface? Playdayz and 01micko did great on that one, nothing else I've seen since is quite as good, as far a user help and interface friendliness goes. Not knocking Fatdog, it's still wonderful, especially the speed, but I'm spending a lot of time learning my way around the differences. A bit more help with the initial installation would make it a lot more accessible for win refugees too.

smokey01 · Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 1895 Location: South Australia

Snail there is quite a lot of help built in that explains most things.

In my repository there is a help file called "how to do stuff in Fatdog" that should be of assistance.

Retrovol is also in my repository, which I find better than Alsamixer.

In the Fatdog package manager select smokey01.com

Cheers