Tuesday, December 29, 2009

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:

*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.
Posted by jamespcole at 3:02 AM
Labels: , , , , , ,

4 comments:

  1. kgingeriDecember 29, 2009 at 7:31 PM

    Nope - no go. pavucontrol was not installed, had to apt-get it - but it doesn't do anything more then sound properties via a right-click on the volume icon.
    I don't even get any action on the level meter for record/input :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. jamespcoleDecember 30, 2009 at 7:15 AM

    Hi kgingeri,
    just out of interest what is the output of this command for you?

    cat /proc/asound/version

    i get

    Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
    Compiled on Dec 2 2009 for kernel 2.6.31-16-generic (SMP).

    so it may be that you need to upgrade alsa, this will install the latest alsa

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/unstable

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

    thanks to http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/ubunt...1021-from.html
    for the alsa instructions.

    Sorry it wasn't working for you, as i said earlier i had been messing with the sound settings etc for a while before i got it working, thanks for the feedback, i'm considering doing another fresh install to figure out the exact steps i took. Let me know if the alsa upgrade makes any difference.

    ReplyDelete
  3. kgingeriDecember 30, 2009 at 8:59 AM

    All works wonderful after the alsa upgrade as instructed above!!

    Thanks James!!

    Output (can't copy/paste here so the specifics):
    Version 1.0.21
    kernel 2.6.31-17-generic (SMP)

    ReplyDelete
  4. KahrizFebruary 2, 2010 at 2:39 PM

    Dear person who wrote the setup for ubuntu 9.10,

    I can not thank you enough for this. I have installed 9.10 4 times now 2 times for the connection to interent which was not working and 2 times for mic. wonderful, great job and good on you, really apprecicate it. For the connecting to interenet was so simple.. open firefox type about:config then type ipv6 in the filter.. and right click to toggle which make the value for ipv6 true hence diabling the ipv6...

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)