I have been trying to get my Logitech USB Headset to work with steam for a while now but have had no luck so far. Has anyone had any luck with this? I am using PulseAudio and from what I have seen by asking around, Steam is supposed to show an option for the mic labeled “PulseAudio” but it does not do this for me. I am pretty sure I have installed the needed packages that it needs to talk with PulseAudio. Here is a zypper se for pulse http://paste.opensuse.org/view/raw/21067647
I don’t have the definitive answer, and forgive me if I’m on the wrong track, but do you have ‘pavucontrol’ installed? That might required to set the default source.
From the terminal, you can examine default sink and source
pactl stat
To list all available sources
pacmd list-sources
The default source can be set with
pacmd set-default-source <name of source>
For example, I have one source (internal mic) reported as
name: <alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo>
so I can set as default with
pacmd set-default-source alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
Yeah I have pavucontrol, the mic is unmuted and it works in other programs like Audacity. The problem is that steam is not showing the PulseAudio option so I figure there is some 32bit package I am missing.
Yes you need the 32 bit pulseadio stuff
alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit
If you check my link in the OP I have it installed, thats why I am so puzzled as to why it wont work. Is it possible that pulse isnt actually running? (I can open pavucontrol though which usually complains if pulse isnt running)
You should start steam from the terminal and see what errors it writes to stout. I remember seeing something about the mic in the terminal, it may not be helpful though.
Maybe these are relevant?
No sound on openSUSE :: Steam for Linux Obecné diskuze
[Dup] Pulse audio :: Steam for Linux Valve Games and Steam for Linux Client](http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/2/846939071075575277/)
Here it is http://paste.opensuse.org/view/raw/87058156
Line of intrest
PulseAudio connect failed (used only for Mic Volume Control) with error: Access denied
FWIW, an odd workaround posted here (ref post #2 and #3)
And there it is, just like magic 
Thank you very much. What a strange strange bug though…
Yes, strange indeed. (Looks like this is the only ‘solution’ for openSUSE currently.) Credit to sokiskatA for posting, and to slouken for working on this issue
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/1179
I wonder how the guy on github came across the solution
The machine-id problem has been resolved with the latest openSUSE updates in openSUSE 13.1.
Yeah saw it in my updates