Fixing Asus t91 Microphone on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

After installing skype on my asus eee t91 running ubuntu 9.10 karmic koala i was unable to get the microphone working in skype(although the web cam worked straight away).

I fixed the problem by doing the following(you'll need to enable backports repositories if you haven't already):

open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic

then reboot.

after rebooting open a terminal and type:

pavucontrol

after running pavucontrol select the input tab and then you can unlock channels and adjust levels etc.

You need to upgrade your alsa version to fix this issue. Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala comes with alsa 1.0.20 in order for the mic to work you need to upgrade to version 1.0.21

To check your current version type this at the terminal:

cat /proc/asound/version

you should get something like this:

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.20.
Compiled on Dec 2 2009 for kernel 2.6.31-16-generic (SMP).

You can install the latest 1.0.21 version by doing the following.

open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/unstable

then type:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

After this jump into skype and make a test call, the mic should now be working.

Thanks to this post for the instructions:

http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/ubuntu-karmic-upgrade-alsa-to-1021-from.html

*Note: before finding this solution I had fiddled with some other sound settings so short of doing a fresh install i can't guarantee these are the only steps to getting the mic working. If this solution does not work for you please leave a comment.