HOWTO: PulseAudio Fixes & System-Wide Equalizer Support

[Stunts]

Hi! I've seen your suggestion.
I'm at work right now and I can't try it, but I'll do it when I get home.
I'll let you know the outcome.

[Grone1985]

Ok, so now Skype is not loading because it claims that libasound.so.2 doesn't exist...

maitreyi@maitreyi-laptop:~$ padsp skype
skype: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

but the thing is that libasound.so.2 is installed but it is in '/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib' so I'm guessing there must be a way to tell Skype that libasound.so.2 is actually installed and where it is... But how is that?
Thanks!

[psyke83]

Ok, so now Skype is not loading because it claims that libasound.so.2 doesn't exist...

maitreyi@maitreyi-laptop:~$ padsp skype
skype: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

but the thing is that libasound.so.2 is installed but it is in '/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib' so I'm guessing there must be a way to tell Skype that libasound.so.2 is actually installed and where it is... But how is that?
Thanks!

No, that's the 32bit version of the library. I would imagine that you're missing the 64bit version. The following should restore Hardy's original versions:

$ sudo apt-get install libasound2/hardy lib32asound2/hardy libasound2-dev/hardy lib32asound2-dev/hardy libasound2-plugins/hardy

If this doesn't help, please post the output of

$ dpkg -l | grep asound

[Auslegung]

I've done everything in your How-to and when I make a call in Skype, I still sound like a retarded robot. Not sure if your how-to was meant to address that issue, but I had hoped so. Any ideas? I've spent hours changing the Volume Control alsamixer thing, so any ideas outside of that?

[psyke83]

I've done everything in your How-to and when I make a call in Skype, I still sound like a retarded robot. Not sure if your how-to was meant to address that issue, but I had hoped so. Any ideas? I've spent hours changing the Volume Control alsamixer thing, so any ideas outside of that?

Does Skype work properly if pulseaudio isn't running? (You may need to remove /etc/asound.conf temporarily to check)

[Auslegung]

Does Skype work properly if pulseaudio isn't running? (You may need to remove /etc/asound.conf temporarily to check)

Skype was sounding bad before I followed your how-to, and now nothing has changed. At some point you suggest going to Options then Sound Devices and making it pulse audio, but the only option it gives me is /dev/dsp for sound in, sound out, and ringing and there are no other options to change it to. How can I force it to pulse audio?

[psyke83]

Skype was sounding bad before I followed your how-to, and now nothing has changed. At some point you suggest going to Options then Sound Devices and making it pulse audio, but the only option it gives me is /dev/dsp for sound in, sound out, and ringing and there are no other options to change it to. How can I force it to pulse audio?

Did you read the "General Tips" section? It depends on what version of Skype you have; judging from your comment about /dev/dsp it is the OSS version.

For the OSS version, you need to run the padsp wrapper, i.e. "padsp skype"

For the ALSA version, you need to go to Skype's Options/Sound Devices and select the "pulse" device.

Both versions of Skype work for me; sound playback (e.g. login, dialing sounds) is fine, but I get the "robotic voice" problem when playing back recorded audio. However, that problem existed for me even before PulseAudio was installed. My laptop is dual-boot and I notice poor quality Skype playback (test123) in Ubuntu - even without PulseAudio. On XP it's much better. I wonder if this has anything to do with it; Linux version: 2.0.0.68, Windows version: 3.8

[Auslegung]

Did you read the "General Tips" section? It depends on what version of Skype you have; judging from your comment about /dev/dsp it is the OSS version.

For the OSS version, you need to run the padsp wrapper, i.e. "padsp skype"

For the ALSA version, you need to go to Skype's Options/Sound Devices and select the "pulse" device.

Both versions of Skype work for me; sound playback (e.g. login, dialing sounds) is fine, but I get the "robotic voice" problem when playing back recorded audio. However, that problem existed for me even before PulseAudio was installed. My laptop is dual-boot and I notice poor quality Skype playback (test123) in Ubuntu - even without PulseAudio. On XP it's much better. I wonder if this has anything to do with it; Linux version: 2.0.0.68, Windows version: 3.8

Yes, I read the general comments and tried the padsa or whatever. Same thing. I've tried Skype static, OSS, regular, everything that's in Synaptic and it's all the same. I'd really like to get rid of my cell phone and it's enormous bill and use only Skype, but Skype seems hell-bent on preventing me from ever using it.

[soulone]

Both versions of Skype work for me; sound playback (e.g. login, dialing sounds) is fine, but I get the "robotic voice" problem when playing back recorded audio. However, that problem existed for me even before PulseAudio was installed. My laptop is dual-boot and I notice poor quality Skype playback (test123) in Ubuntu - even without PulseAudio. On XP it's much better. I wonder if this has anything to do with it; Linux version: 2.0.0.68, Windows version: 3.8

I too have the "robotic voice" problem. But it happens after I switched from 7.10 to 8.04. In Gutsy I use ALSA and Skype works pretty, so I'm sure it's caused by the new Pulse Audio system.

Though both version of Skype running but problem persists, I've tried every step in the first post but in vain.

Anyone knows any answer?

[Grone1985]

Ok... So I tried what you suggested but I get this... and I don't really know if I should downgrade those files...

maitreyi@maitreyi-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install libasound2/hardy lib32asound2/hardy libasound2-dev/hardy lib32asound2-dev/hardy libasound2-plugins/hardy
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Selected version 1.0.15-3ubuntu4 (Ubuntu:8.04/hardy) for libasound2
Selected version 1.0.15-3ubuntu4 (Ubuntu:8.04/hardy) for lib32asound2
Selected version 1.0.15-3ubuntu4 (Ubuntu:8.04/hardy) for libasound2-dev
Selected version 1.0.15-3ubuntu4 (Ubuntu:8.04/hardy) for lib32asound2-dev
Selected version 1.0.15-1ubuntu3 (Ubuntu:8.04/hardy) for libasound2-plugins
Suggested packages:
  libasound2-doc
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  lib32asound2 lib32asound2-dev libasound2 libasound2-dev libasound2-plugins
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 5 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1494kB/1811kB of archives.
After this operation, 20.5kB of additional disk space will be used.
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Let me know, thanks!