On 6 December 2014 at 10:00, Robert Peters robertpeters9@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, I'm running an install from exegnu-jessv-20141125 on a recent ThinkPad. Amarok when starting complains: xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers. Haven't found anything satisfactory in searching, but the problem goes back at least to KDE3. BTW, VCL works okay, after I select the mixer. Maybe it uses different drivers. Robert
Got alsa - xine - kmix - amarok working okay, by making sure that basic Trinity packages are installed.
Now trying to get sound in Skype. A search showed that newer Skype requires PulseAudio and recommended installing pavucontrol. Compiling from source required installing several dependencies. Dbus strongly recommended, but it has broken dependencies. Still no sound. I wonder if it all requires systemd. In which case, are there any usable Skype alternatives?
Robert
On Sun, 7 Dec 2014 21:34:19 +1000 Robert Peters robertpeters9@gmail.com wrote:
On 6 December 2014 at 10:00, Robert Peters robertpeters9@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, I'm running an install from exegnu-jessv-20141125 on a recent ThinkPad. Amarok when starting complains: xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers. Haven't found anything satisfactory in searching, but the problem goes back at least to KDE3. BTW, VCL works okay, after I select the mixer. Maybe it uses different drivers. Robert
Got alsa - xine - kmix - amarok working okay, by making sure that basic Trinity packages are installed.
Now trying to get sound in Skype. A search showed that newer Skype requires PulseAudio and recommended installing pavucontrol. Compiling from source required installing several dependencies. Dbus strongly recommended, but it has broken dependencies. Still no sound. I wonder if it all requires systemd. In which case, are there any usable Skype alternatives?
Skype needs 32-bit audio packages, which may need separate installation if you're running a 64-bit system.
Skype 4.3.0.37 does require either pulseaudio or the apulse emulator ( https://github.com/i-rinat/apulse ). It doesn't require systemd (since it's installable onto a Gentoo OpenRC-based system), but it may want to put some files into /etc/dbus-1/system.d . The full dependency list includes QT4 and some X11 libraries.
Alternatives to Skype for video chat on a desktop PC? Ugh. Google Hangouts, if it works, or the WebRTC support that's gradually making its way into some browsers. Anyone got any better ideas?
E. Liddell
On 7 December 2014 at 22:49, E. Liddell ejlddll@googlemail.com wrote: <snip>
Skype needs 32-bit audio packages, which may need separate installation if you're running a 64-bit system.
Skype 4.3.0.37 does require either pulseaudio or the apulse emulator ( https://github.com/i-rinat/apulse ). It doesn't require systemd (since it's installable onto a Gentoo OpenRC-based system), but it may want to put some files into /etc/dbus-1/system.d . The full dependency list includes QT4 and some X11 libraries.
Alternatives to Skype for video chat on a desktop PC? Ugh. Google Hangouts, if it works, or the WebRTC support that's gradually making its way into some browsers. Anyone got any better ideas?
E. Liddell
Thanks for the pointer to apulse. It installed okay, but the command "apulse skype" complains "unable to open slave". So I have to check modules and maybe ALSA settings.
Robert
On Sun, Dec 07, 2014 at 07:49:30AM -0500, E. Liddell wrote:
... Skype 4.3.0.37 does require either pulseaudio or the apulse emulator ( https://github.com/i-rinat/apulse ).
Wowie! apulse works for me with Skype 4.3.0.37 under OpenSuse 11.4! No problems at all. I installed it in my account by adjusting the cmake options.
Thanks!
Now I can talk to people who don't use Linux. But why would I want to? Just kidding!
On Sun, Dec 07, 2014 at 09:34:19PM +1000, Robert Peters wrote:
... are there any usable Skype alternatives?
IHU -- I Hear U -- is an excellent audio-only VOIP system for Linux.
I've been using the "i386 binary linked with static libs" download for years on OpenSuse 11.4, and a friend uses it on OpenSuse 13.1. Both are the 32-bit version of the OS. He was not successful running it on the 64-bit OS, but did not try compiling it from source.
It's very easy to get going, requiring only one port to be opened. You call a person by specifying their ip-address. You can do a test call by calling your own ip-address, and you should get a very rapid echo.
If the loop gain is too high you can get echoes, which of course can be eliminated if one party uses earphones. I did not get echoes with a friend in Finland (I'm in the US).
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E. Liddell -
Mark S Bilk -
Robert Peters