Lemur Ultrathin Laptop Issues

[PatrickVogeli]

hi there,

maybe you could try something. I have an acer 1810tz which, after a standard install, the mic doesn't work. That was fixed installing the alsa-backports package. After that, the mic would work with sound-recorder, but not skype.

Well, in my case, skype was fixed after, in the sound preferences, I set the output ballance only to right or left speaker and then, skype works! It's actually unbelievable, but it does the trick.

Sure it's not that nice, but usable.

[Mark.ST]

We haven't updated anything since Lemurs started shipping.
[...]
It doesn't appear there is (or was) a skype/pulse problem for the Lemur.

Yes there was/is. It's you who suggested installing the newer driver (since my Lemur came with the older Driver version 2.4.1), and that (at least) fixed the webcam issue. Skype test call issue wasn't fixed though.
So if Lemurs still come with Driver 2.4.1, they will have (at least) webcam issues until they upgrade the driver, which is not publicly available yet (as of Dec 31). But I guess you probably already ship Lemurs with the newer driver (after I notified you about the issue), which is a good thing because less customers waste time.

I feel as though you are trying to give the impression that you were consistent with your answers (which I believe you weren't), rather than really trying to fix the issue a customer is facing and making sure they are satisfied with your products. (Like your attempt to repeat "Skype works out of the box". It didn't, at least on the Lemur I got from you, and you know that.)



In previous posts, your screenshot shows you are using the pulseaudio volume control, which you must have installed (as it doesn't come with the base install of Ubuntu or on our systems). My best guess is that either 1) this broke some aspect of skype or pulseaudio; or 2) you don't have that particular volume control set up correctly.

That's probably not the case. I installed pulseaudio volume control after jjacob2 suggested installing it in one of the previous posts in this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...8&postcount=20

Before that, Skype test call failed. After that/Now, Skype test call still fails. So I guess pulseaudio volume control wasn't the one that broke skype or pulseaudio. It's obviously broken somewhere though.



On the chance that the pulseaudio volume control *didn't* break skype or some aspect of pulseaudio, your sliders for Mic2 seem too low. You will notice mine are much higher. This did make a difference in my own testing, but I don't know if that matters on your particular set-up.

I will try this, but what difference did this make (since you mentioned it)? Before making this high, did Skype test call fail? And changing the sliders for Mic2 fixed the issue? Is that what you mean?

[thomasaaron]

Yes there was/is. It's you who suggested installing the newer driver (since my Lemur came with the older Driver version 2.4.1), and that (at least) fixed the webcam issue. Skype test call issue wasn't fixed though.

My comment was simply a response to your assertion that we changed something, and that this change is what fixed pulseaudio as it pertains to Skype. Here is your comment verbatim...

Great! So you updated the Ubuntu that comes with Lemur, and it sounds like that fixed the Skype/pulse problem.

I was trying to point out that this wasn't the case. We've done nothing whatsoever to tweak skype or pulseaudio, or to address this issue in any way either in our image or our driver.

It's true that the latest unavailable driver fixes the webcam, which was broken due to an update. But that really has nothing to do with your statement, which is why it didn't occur to me to incorporate that into my answer.

I feel as though you are trying to give the impression that you were consistent with your answers (which I believe you weren't), rather than really trying to fix the issue a customer is facing and making sure they are satisfied with your products. (Like your attempt to repeat "Skype works out of the box". It didn't, at least on the Lemur I got from you, and you know that.)

I've worked quite hard at fixing the issue for you, despite your confrontational demeanor. In fact, I am of the opinion that Skype/Pulseaudio had no problems when your computer shipped and still don't.

It is my best estimation that something you installed, or some modification you have made has broken Skype. That's not a slight. I break stuff in Ubuntu on a daily basis.

But to be fair, there is another option. Although it is pretty unlikely, you could have a hardware issue as well. Probably the best way to rule this out would be to re-image and try my screenshots. If that doesn't fix it, we probably should make that assumption.

As for the webcam issue, I thought we handled that quite expediently for you.

That's probably not the case. I installed pulseaudio volume control after jjacob2 suggested installing it in one of the previous posts in this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...8&postcount=20

Before that, Skype test call failed. After that/Now, Skype test call still fails. So I guess pulseaudio volume control wasn't the one that broke skype or pulseaudio. It's obviously broken somewhere though.

Perhaps it's not the case. But it is my best estimation, given the data I'm able to glean from this thread, of what the problem might be.

I've done my best to provide you with support, but you obviously are too angry and defensive. It would seem that I'm only succeeding in irritating you further, which is something I have no desire to do.

For further support on this... or any other issues... please feel free to contact us directly via email or phone. This is certainly not the tone we are shooting for in our forums.

And I'm terribly sorry this has been a bad experience for you. It certainly hasn't been intentional. I think you'll find precious few threads on this forum with this sort of tone from a customer. Probably none at all. I'm very disappointed about that.

As for this thread... I've given you the fix that should work fine on your system, barring a hardware issue. I'll probably not respond to it anymore, as it obviously is not productive in the slightest.

The last word is yours, my friend. I hope you have a great New Year.

[Mark.ST]

As for the webcam issue, I thought we handled that quite expediently for you.

Yes you did, thank you. I think your customer service is quite good, although I think you could improve on certain areas (like putting the latest drivers in the publicly available repositories, documentation for your latest products, etc). Apparently I complained too much, but it doesn't mean your service is bad.

It's sad you won't provide support here because I don't use a certain kind of English (as I said, it's not even my first language), and I'm "far too angry." Sounds like I said "**** you" (Edit: wow, this word is censored) or something (I didn't). I know my English is not extremely polite, but it does the job of describing what happened/didn't happen and asking for more information based on that, which I believe is necessary in this kind of technical forums.

Personally when I search for technical problems and solutions to them in technical forums I can't care less about the "tone" of the language written there (read some of Linus Torvalds' mail archive to see "tone" probably isn't a big issue for technical discussions). It's the instructions/code/settings that matter. They are technical forums after all -- people don't go there to find heart-warming conversations. And one benefit of using forums (as opposed to phone or unpublished email) is people can share technical information with people who had/have the same problem and who potentially know how to fix it.

Apparently this view is not shared by everyone.

I, too, hope you have a great new year.

[jdb]

Yes you did, thank you. I think your customer service is quite good, although I think you could improve on certain areas (like putting the latest drivers in the publicly available repositories, documentation for your latest products, etc).

All the drivers that System76 develops are in one driver package which is publicly available.

Updates to packages included with Ubuntu come from the Ubuntu depositories.
System76 machines run pretty much unaltered Ubuntu, any changes are
contained in the one system76 drivers package.

Linus Torvalds' mail archive to see "tone" probably isn't a big issue for technical discussions.

Linus expresses opinions & distributes knowledge, he's not asking for help.

Even (especially) in the most technical forums, tone will make a big difference in how much help you will get.


jdb

[Mark.ST]

All the drivers that System76 develops are in one driver package which is publicly available.

I said "latest drivers," and it's not publicly available *yet*. Tom said it will be publicly available soon (after adding "some other features"). I sent email to Tom to receive the driver that fixes the webcam issue (because when I purchased/received Lemur, it didn't work).

I didn't express any opinions here, it's a fact.

[Mark.ST]

Oh, also, Linus does ask for help on normal stuff that normal people (like you and me) care, not to mention reporting bugs/errors is part of this "distributing knowledge" thing.

I do agree the number of responses would be different depending on what's written and how it's written. What I said is I *wish* people become more tolerant on the how it's written part. It's a personal opinion, and yours may be different.

[savantelite]

Well Mark let me commend you on being an early adopter. (hands clapping). Because of your strides the Lemur will be that much better for the next customer...Witch is ME!!!

It isn't here yet, and its won't be my only machine. But it will be super cool looking and will have never had to taste windows.

But anyways thanks for paving the way. We other Lemur owners appreciate your work.

[Mark.ST]

Thanks savantelite. I want to hear more voices like yours

Other than the Skype issue I experienced and the fan noise, it's really a nice laptop, and overall I enjoy the Intel SSD performance too (I don't know if you made this upgrade or not). Although Firefox still takes a few seconds to launch the first time, Google Chrome (chromium-browser) starts in a fraction of a second. Fast.

Keyboard could be a bit better. Right now volume-down/up and brightness-down/up keys (that are used in combination with the Fn key) are placed on F5/F6 and F8/F9, respectively, but it's more intuitive and usable to put them on cursor keys, like many other laptops do for good reason. By default. I pressed Fn + F4 by mistake a few times when I really wanted to press was Fn + F5 to turn the volume down, and you know what, Fn + F4 brings the laptop to the sleep mode! Ugh.

"Be Silent" Keys

There are also almost-universally-useless keys like SysRq, Num Lk, Scr Lk, Pause, Break that (almost) nobody can even explain what they do, let alone use them regularly (I know, many other laptops have these silly keys still).

We Survived Until 2010

Also it would be nice to have an LED indicator for the webcam. Otherwise it's hard to know if the laptop is seeing me or not. But maybe using an app like cameramonitor makes this a non-issue, I don't know.

[siabost]

Hi,

Mark.ST - glad to read that most of your problems with your laptop have been solved.

I live in the U.K. & have recently bought a netbook by a company called Mesh in the U.K.
The netbook has a built-in Bisoncam Pro similar to (if not the same as) the one in Mark.ST's laptop.
The netbook arrived with Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix loaded which I have now upgraded to 9.10 Netbook Remix.

I've had the same problem with my webcam from day-one as Mark.ST along with the same error messages. Having searched high & low I've not found a solution (until now, possibly).

Question is: would installing the System76 driver version 2.4.0 resolve the problem on my "Mesh" built machine? Or V2.4.2, which isn't on the website yet?

Many thanks