Drivers for built-in microphone?

English Hardware
1

Hello, I installed OpenSuSe 12.1 yesterday. I tried video chatting with it, using Skype and Google Talk. Both tries, my friend and I were able to see eachother, but my friend could not hear me. On GoogleTalk, something popped up saying that my microphone was not working. I went into the settings of google talk, and i tried the only choice for a microphone source and it still didnt not work. Also, on Skype, i was able to hear my friend, but on GTalk, I was not able to hear him. So I do not know if I need drivers for both my speakers and my microphone or what. If anyone could help me out, it would be very appreciated, I am new to using Linux.

2

Perhaps something to do with your audio setup. I would first have a look at the following blog and load the application that is suggested there.

Pulseaudio Basics for openSUSE with pavucontrol - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Searching the forum on Skype will also find many matches I would bet, but follow the blog first.

Thank You,

3

I clicked the link but it didn’t help. I think it is a driver issue.

4

On Sun, 13 May 2012 00:26:03 +0000, davidpm95 wrote:

> I clicked the link but it didn’t help. I think it is a driver issue.

To make such a determination, it would be useful to know what type of
audio hardware is in your system.

It would also be interesting to know what you base that assumption on.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

5

The driver for your mic is already installed on your openSUSE GNU/Linux. Drivers in GNU/Linux are typically kernel modules, and the ‘alsa’ sound driver package will provide the appropriate driver (kernel modules) for your GNU/Linux. As noted, it is already installed. Do not install any more alsa packages.

Sometimes (not often) for user’s hardware, their alsa driver which is normally automatically configured upon boot, may need to have a configuration file edited to force a different configuration upon boot.

In order to have a better assessment as to you mic problem, there is a script that you can run which will provide us more information on your hardware/software (audio driver) setup, such that we can better assess the problem. Please, with your PC connected to the internet, as a regular user, can you send this command from a terminal:


/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh

and select the SHARE/UPLOAD option. The script will check your PC’s GNU/Linux hardware/software configuration, upload that information to an alsa paste site, and when the script is complete, it will give you the location where the information was uploaded as a web-address/URL. Please run the script and post here the web-address/URL.

Also, do you have your mic working in any other applications ?

6

I have tried using the microphone in Skype and Google Talk, both times the other person could not here me. I ran a test in Skype to test the microphone, and it failed.
Here is the information you asked for: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=05287a2b47db71e04ecaa73e84209ef56943c563

7

I note this in the script for your mixer settings:


**Simple mixer control 'Auto-Mute Mode',0**
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: 'Disabled' 'Enabled'
  Item0: '**Enabled**'
**Simple mixer control 'Internal Mic',0**
  Capabilities: cvolume penum
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 80
  Front Left: Capture 0 **[0%]** -74.00dB]
  Front Right: Capture 0 **[0%]** -74.00dB]

If this is an internal mic you are trying to use, then clearly with capture at 0% it is muted. Hence no mic capture of sound possible!

I also note auto-mute enabled and I do not know what that means. What does it mean ?

There may be other problems, but that mic capture at 0% is pretty blocking on using the mic.

8

I do not know auto-mute means either. Is there a way to change that 0% ? And yes it is an internal microphone

9

Typically one uses their mixer and also pulse audio (via pavucontrol application). My experience suggests if muted in the mixer, then pauvcontrol will not be able to overrule the mixer setting. ie it must be fixed in the mixer.

In KDE the mixer I use is kmix. Gnome users have a different mixer. The application ‘alsamixer’ is also available. And then there is the command line ‘amixer’ where one needs to learn the syntax. To find instructions on alsamixer type in a terminal:


man alsamixer

and to find instructions in amixer type in a terminal


amixer

…
I dont’ have much experience using ‘amixer’, but it could be to unmute your internal mic might be something as simple as this command as a regular user:


amixer set 'Internal Mic' 95 unmute

where I am attempting to set it to 95% capture level (which may be too high, but one can always adjust it lower). That may not work, I do not have your hardware. Every model computer has different hardware, so it is difficult to be accurate when guessing such as what I am doing now. If that does succeed, you may still need then to go into ‘pavucontrol’ to set up the mic, as was noted in a post earlier.

… and then there is the question of the ‘automute’. What does that mean. I think you should try to find out.

10

I disabled automute in the alsamixer menu in the terminal. I turned up the capture level in the terminal for my mic and the sound settings, and still no luck.

11

I don’t know if automute should be enabled or disabled. I do not know what it is supposed to do.

Now, … did you also run pavucontrol at the same time in which you are using Skype, like the example in the blog post ? Pulseaudio Basics for openSUSE with pavucontrol - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Can you show me a new output URL/web-address from running that diagnostic script again, so that I can do a quality check of what you note you succeeded to do (ie move up capture levels) ?

By the way, how did you turn up the capture level ?

Please also do another check for me … I note from the script


ARECORD

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
**card 0**: NVidia [HDA NVidia], **device 0**: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

which tells me your mic device is hw:0,0.

Please run the command in a terminal :


arecord -vv -f s16_LE -c 2 -D hw:0,0 new.wav

and talk into your mic and see if that records to a file called ‘new.wav’ ? I am assuming a file format of ‘s16_LE’ (which may be wrong) and I am assume two channels with ’ -c 2 ’ which may be wrong. But its worth a try. After recording for 10 or 20 seconds, press <CTRL><C> to cancel the recording. Then play back the file ‘new.wav’ in a media player. Did that record sound ? Note arecord works independent of pulse audio.