skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

What other apps and distros do you use to round out your studio?

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Capoeira
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skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Capoeira »

i need alsa, because i use jack to use my firewire card with skype
Joermungand
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Joermungand »

There’s always the PulseAudio bridge, but……… this means no more Skype for me! Or, at least, no more upgrades. No way will PulseAudio ever find room in my system. One thing is clear: we’ll need to find an alternative to Skype. Hell yeah!
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Capoeira »

i never had pulse installed...what is actualy the problem with having it?
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Joermungand »

There might be none. Emphasis on might – over ‘may’ or substitutes. PulseAudio is a sound server interfacing to ALSA. How many sound servers do we really need? Especially when we have Jack? I used to run Ubuntu before moving to Arch, and, when they switched to PulseAudio, I never got along with it. After moving to Arch, I had no PulseAudio and everything went back to normal. Viewed through the lens of my experience, it is something that no one should actually need. I’ve tried to help people out on this forum who used PulseAudio – only to realise its presence only amounts to one more pain in the proverbial butt.

Now, I’m not saying one shouldn’t install it – it’s just that my personal experience says NO.

On some other hand, my take on the matter is, it’s Microsoft, so we outsiders should take care. They’ll never make it easy for us – quite on the contrary, they like us like sore teeth. As far as this is concerned, I’m acting on instinct – when it smells rotten, then something really is rotten, so get the hell out of here!

Enough of my rambling. I don’t say ‘don’t install PulseAudio’. I only say ‘Beware!’. But remember, PulseAudio and serious audio work don’t get along.
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Capoeira »

Joermungand wrote:But remember, PulseAudio and serious audio work don’t get along.
well, it wont interfere in my jack sessions won't it?
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Joermungand »

Not if it’s not running.
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Capoeira »

Joermungand wrote:Not if it’s not running.
maybe i'll give it a try......there is always the option to downgrade skype anyways.....old version worked fine
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Joermungand »

He-heh! That’s the beauty of Linux. Let us know how it goes. I’ll be there to help if needed, though my experience with PulseAudio is (extremely) limited.
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by sysrqer »

Is it actually necessary then? I saw on their website, it seems a bit ambiguous, they say they stopped supporting alsa and recommend installing pulse but it's clear if it won't work without pulse.
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Joermungand »

I’ve just made some tests with the new Skype package. Although it only lists lib32-libpulse as a dependency, it will not work without Pulse installed. So that’s it for me – downgraded to 4.2 and added to IgnorePkg.
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Capoeira »

well, it seams to me that all problems in jack pulse mixed enviroment were fixed; from Ardour manual:
Background Info
Like many distributions, Ubuntu has decided to use PulseAudio as the default audio system. PulseAudio is a rich and capable system that provides excellent services for typical users of Linux on the desktop. However, it is not capable of the type of performance that tools like Ardour require and in particular does not offer the possibility of sending audio between applications that can makes the Linux audio environment a very interesting one.

This would not a problem if it were not for the fact that JACK will not run correctly (if at all) if it needs to use the same soundcard/audio interface that PulseAudio is using. And since on Ubuntu, PulseAudio is configured by default to always use the (typically single) audio interface on your computer, this is a bit of a problem.

The developers of JACK and PulseAudio got together in 2009 and agreed upon a mechanism by which PulseAudio and JACK could cooperate in their use of a single soundcard. Whether or not PulseAudio is running by default, when JACK starts up it sends out a request to use the soundcard. If PulseAudio is running, it will give up its use of the soundcard to allow JACK to take over (and can optionally be told to route its own audio through JACK). When JACK finishes, it sends out another message, and PulseAudio can once again use the soundcard directly.

What is the problem?
The specific issues known at this time for all flavors of Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 are:

a bug in PulseAudio that causes it not to give up the soundcard when JACK asks (LP: #1163638, fixed in Ubuntu 13.04).
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by calimerox »

uninstalling pulseaudio is the first thing i always do installing a fresh distro, ubuntu, debian or manjaro. I struggled so much with this strange beast and I dont see any advantages with it at all ... also skype is getting worse with every upgrade, isnt it? is there a real voip + video alternative to skype? there was a lot a while ago but it was never running smooth on my computer.. ;(
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Joermungand »

Empathy (https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/Empathy)? Never used it, though…
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Petra-Sue »

calimerox wrote:uis there a real voip + video alternative to skype?
Additionally, as a question from a rather dumb listener: Would any alternative, like the suggested Empathy, cooperate with Skype in the sense that I could communicate with another person that furtheron uses Skype (typically on Win or Mac).

Otherwise the switch would be near to senseless if Skype is, and remains in future, the typical system of choice for the majority.

Cheers,

Petra
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Re: skype cuts suport for alsa....and now?

Post by Capoeira »

Petra-Sue wrote:
calimerox wrote:uis there a real voip + video alternative to skype?
Additionally, as a question from a rather dumb listener: Would any alternative, like the suggested Empathy, cooperate with Skype in the sense that I could communicate with another person that furtheron uses Skype (typically on Win or Mac).

Otherwise the switch would be near to senseless if Skype is, and remains in future, the typical system of choice for the majority.

Cheers,

Petra
that's the real problem......no alternative if everybody is using skype
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