Audio capture and microphone on ASUS eee PC 701 with Intrepid

[Orange_and_Green]

Hello everybody! It's been a long time, I hope everyone is well.

I spent the weekend installing Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex on our ASUS eeePC 701.

Unfortunately most hardware doesn't work out of the box; however, following the instructions on this site I could get everything to work except for audio capture.

I couldn't find a unitary, comprehensive guide on the Internet about this subject. I succeeded in the end, following several pieces of advice. I thought I'd post all the steps I followed here, so maybe others having the same problem can profit from my efforts too...

OK, here goes. To enable sound recording (especially for programs like Ekiga or Skype) on the ASUS eee 701 on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, I followed these steps:

1) Install Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, run all the updates first.

2) System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager:
Search for and Uninstall all packages whose name starts with "pulseaudio"
Install "esound"

3) Delete the file /etc/X11/Xsession.d/70pulseaudio by running the following command:

sudo rm /etc/X11/Xsession.d/70pulseaudio

Warning: Failing to do so will make you unable to log into the system. If you find yourself in this situation, log into a failsafe GNOME session and delete the file from there.

4) As suggested here, add the line "options snd-hda-intel model=3stack-dig" to the file "/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base" by doing

gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

and paste the line at the end of the file.

5) Reboot your system.

5) Go to System->Preferences->Sound.
On the tab "sound", make sure that the first two entries read "ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture". Set the third and the fourth one ("Sound Playback" and "Sound Capture" in "Audio Conferencing") to "HDA Intel ALC662 Analog (ALSA)". The last one ("Device") should read "HDA Intel (ALSA mixer)".

On the tab "Sounds", disable the system sounds. If you don't, you will get choppy sound when recording, probably because of a buffer that is not flushed or something.

7) Open Volume Control (the loudspeaker icon on the top right panel; if you don't see one, right click the panel and add the "Volume Control" applet), click "Preferences" and tick all boxes. In the "Playback" Tab, make sure that EVERYTHING is full volume and not muted. Raise the volume to 100% for "Capture" in the "Recording" tab, and make sure that the "Input" tab has the "Mic" (not Front Mic) selected.

8) Now you should be able to record from the sound recorder (test it). To be able to use Skype, go into the Audio options and select "HDA INtel (hw:Intel,0)" for "Sound Input".

This should do the trick.

To conclude, a few random tips about other aspects of the installation:

* If you don't see the network manager applet on the top right panel, right click the panel and add "Notification Area".
* I really recommend the eee-control package to make the function keys work. You can download it from this site.
* Shutdown doesn't work out of the box, it's hard to notice but watch for the power LED staying on even when the screen is turned off after shutdown. The fix is described in this article.
* To make the microphone work in Skype, go into the Audio options and select "HDA INtel (hw:Intel,0)" for "Sound Input".
* I used my backup program to automatically restore all the packages I had installed. Check out my signature if you think this may interest you too.
* Intrepid Ibex is really fantastic, much smoother and better integrated than its predecessors IMHO. It generally works faster, it recognised and configured my UMTS stick on-the-fly (while it worked on Hardy with the latest version of umtsmon, it was a little awkward to use), and the encrypted Private directory is simply awesome. I like it really much, thanks to all the developers for this brilliant distro.

Good night everyone, and enjoy your Ubuntu