[gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?

[gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?

[Mick]

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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?

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?

[Alan McKinnon]

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.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?

[Mick]

On 22 June 2014 21:51, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@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?

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 12:53 PM, Mick <michaelkintzios@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

Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?

[luis jure]

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?

[covici]

luis jure <ljc@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
         covici@ccs.covici.com

[gentoo-user] Re: Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 22/06/14 19:53, 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.

For chat. Skype is the continuation of MSN/Messenger, so many people use 
it for chat too.


> 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

If *that* looks complicated to you, then I do have to ask: why on earth 
are you using Gentoo? That guide is extremely easy to follow by any 
average Gentooer.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?

[Mick]

On 23 June 2014 03:32, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/06/14 19:53, Mick wrote:

>>   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
>
>
> If *that* looks complicated to you, then I do have to ask: why on earth are
> you using Gentoo? That guide is extremely easy to follow by any average
> Gentooer.

OK,  I admit I exaggerated a bit to state a point.  From the
perspective of having to install and use something that I hitherto
never needed, it involves more configuration than I would like to
bother myself with.  A moot point I know, since additional
functionality brings with it additional configuration options.
Anyway, I have now installed PA and am using it, so it can't have been
all that complicated.  ;p
-- 
Regards,
Mick

Re: [gentoo-user] Skype now will only work with pulseaudio?

[Stroller]

On Sun, 22 June 2014, at 5:53 pm, Mick <michaelkintzios@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.