Linux Skype issue. How to work with Pulseaudio in Ubuntu Karmic and/or Hardy?

Question

I'm trying to use Skype with Ubuntu Karmic and I just don't understand how to configure Pulseaudio properly. The previous version of Skype allowed me to talk through and hear the voice on my USB phone and the ringing sounds through my laptop speaker. I'm not able to do this with the new version (2.1.0.47).

Answer 1

You may want to try reinstalling PulseAudio via the instructions at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578:

1) Backup (and then delete) your previous configuration files:

mkdir ~/pulse-backup && cp -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound* /etc/asound.conf /etc/pulse -t ~/pulse-backup/
rm -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound* 
sudo rm /etc/asound.conf

2) Ensure you have the necessary PulseAudio libraries and configuration utilities installed:

sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins padevchooser libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio

3) Ensure the evil "libflashsupport" library is not installed:

sudo apt-get remove --purge libflashsupport flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound

4) (Karmic users - please skip this step, it's not necessary).

5) Open the PulseAudio Volume Control application ("pavucontrol", or you can launch "Applications/Sound & Video/PulseAudio Device Chooser" and select Volume Control from this applet's menu). In the Output Devices section you will see a listing of the playback devices available on your system. Right-click on the entry that you desire to be made the default playback device on your system and enable the "Default" checkmark. Similarly, navigate to Input Devices, then right-click on the device you wish to set as your default input device (microphone), and ensure the "Default" setting is checked. Close the application when you're finished.

pulseaudio & pavucontrol

6) Ensure that your sound card's PCM mixer is not muted or set to 0% volume (this appears to be a common bug in Intrepid and Jaunty):

alsamixer -Dhw

The Key step is step 5 where you define what devices are used for input and output. Doing this allowed Skype to work with my hardware.

Answer 2

On my system the notification sounds (login, incoming call ringing, etc.) didn't work but audio during calls worked fine.

I found out that I didn't have pavucontrol installed. I installed the pavucontrol package and launched pavucontrol. On the Playback tab I found out the System Sounds volume was set to 0%. I adjusted the volume up and now it is working fine.

Answer 3

This is meant to be easy - basically PulseAudio has the concept of sound streams that come from applications. You can retarget the sound stream to a different hardware device.

Unfortunately not having multiple hardware devices here I can't test whether the new GNOME volume dialog lets you easily do this, but the KDE Phonon dialog is supposed to according to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/KDE_PulseAudio_Integration - not sure if/when this has hit ubuntu

Answer 4

In my sound preferences, I have 'PulseAudio server(local)' for Mic, Speakers, Ringing. And it works. I don't think I had to configure anything manually. Try reinstalling skype maybe.