A workable way to install skype 4.3 in puppy

[CatDude]

Hello Watchdog

This is what i get (on the machine in my sig):

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# arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC272 Analog [ALC272 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
#

CatDude
.

[watchdog]

Hello Watchdog

This is what i get (on the machine in my sig):

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# arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC272 Analog [ALC272 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
#

CatDude
.

I think you should set:

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load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,0
load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:0,0

in /usr/etc/pulse/default.pa as found out by OscarTalks.

[CatDude]

Hi

..I think you should set:

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load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,0
load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:0,0

in /usr/etc/pulse/default.pa as found out by OscarTalks.

As i poited out in my earlier post:

..i have sound + microphone working (i use a headset) using either of these lines in: /usr/etc/pulse/default.pa

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load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:0

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load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:0,0

I didn't need to do anthing with the 'sink' line as everything works OK


CatDude
.

[DM was on fire!]

Awesome. Tried to get into a call and noticed I had no sound. Googled "No sound Skype 4.3" and found a crapload of Linux-based results.
Skype/Microsoft definitely screwed the pooch with this, first not telling us about the upgrade and now ditching Alsa support.

Anyway. I digress.
I tried everything in the first post and I'm still unable to hear sound. Skype doesn't seem to recognize that I'm using PulseAudio. The edits proposed by CatDude don't help either. :/ Any idea?

[OscarTalks]

Confirmed working in Slacko 5.7
I took the dynamic version of Skype 4.3.0.37 from the website and repacked it along with 01micko's Qt libraries (including the plugins for avatar support) as before.

My pulseaudio-2.0-test.pet reduces the size of pulseaudio-2.0.w53orig.pet from 5977 K down to 1059 K and still works for me, so quite a significant reduction!

Both of these are uploaded to http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks for now. Strictly for testing of course, always take the usual precautions.

A reminder that you do need to make sure that the spot directory is owned by spot (not root). Open a terminal and do:-

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chown -R spot:spot spot

Then you can run Skype as spot with the commands as already described.

It may be OK to run everything as root. One thing I am not sure about yet though is if we were to have the pulseaudio daemon launching at startup and running all the time I wonder if this would cause a problem for other applications needing access to alsa for sound input/output?

@ DM on fire
I find that some of the steps in the first post are not necessary. Later posts are now describing a simpler method. What Puppy are you running? Are you able to get pulseaudio --start to work in terminal or do you get an error? What soundcards/hardware are you using? Can you start Skype? What do you see in the sound settings section of the options GUI?

[DM was on fire!]

Yeah, pulseaudio --start runs without a gripe; and Skype has been running even since I did an install of the .deb right from the Skype page the day they forced us to upgrade.

Sound settings only shows "default device," and does not show PulseAudio. Can't get my hardware info at this time, I'll post again when I can; but PRETTY sure it's Intel ICH7.

Also an issue with this .pet, I can't see any user avatars... worked fine on the .deb.

[watchdog]

@DM was on fire

You have not said what puppy you are using. Now I'm testing in slacko 5.7 the new packages provided by OscarTalks. It works. No need to change ownership of spot dir. I had only to change /usr/etc/pulse/defalut.pa with my original settings. I can't start pulseaudio as root. "DM was on fire": read the clue post http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 631#789631 and all the thread. Try in a live or in a new install. The settings in /usr/etc/pulse/default.pa are hardware-dependent. First try to launch without changes. If pulseaudio does not start then in a console exec:

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arecord -l

and take note of mic subdevice you are using. Say it is x. Then change in default.pa the two lines:

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load-module module-alsa-sink 
load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:x,0

I assume you are using sound card 0. In my netbook worked:

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load-module module-alsa-sink  device=hw:0,0
load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:0,0

(mic subdevice was 0). Hope this helps.

[DM was on fire!]

Whoops, my apologies. Precise 5.5.

I'll give this a shot when I'm back home and report back with results. Going to probably be back because I have a TurtleBeach headset which acts as it's own sound device.

[CatDude]

Hi

...I can't start pulseaudio as root

No problem here running it as root in fresh frugal of Slacko-5.7

I used retrovol with the aid of Psip to set up the mixer levels
then i load up a custom .sfs file which consists of the two .pets posted here

• pulseaudio-2.0.w53orig.pet
  skype-4.3.0.37-w5orig.pet

The only changes i made were to NOT include the 'root' directory from the pulseaudio-2.0.w53.orig.pet
and edited line 45 of /usr/etc/pulse/default.pa
to look like this:

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load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:0,0

Then i ran the commands as shown in the attached image,
the second 'pulseaudio --kill' command was just to check it had been killed.

During previous tests i noticed that sometimes it appeared as though Skype
automatically killed it and other times it didn't,
and required the 'pulseaudio --kill' command.
Best to just run that command anyway i suppose.

CatDude

P.S
I have also got this skype-4.3.0.37 working in Fatdog64-611,
though i am having a difficult time trying to get it working in the latest 700 version.
.

[peebee]

I took the dynamic version of Skype 4.3.0.37 from the website and repacked it along with 01micko's Qt libraries (including the plugins for avatar support) as before.

My pulseaudio-2.0-test.pet reduces the size of pulseaudio-2.0.w53orig.pet from 5977 K down to 1059 K and still works for me, so quite a significant reduction!

Both of these are uploaded to http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks for now. Strictly for testing of course, always take the usual precautions.

Hi OscarTalks

Working well here - both cam and mic with your provided default.pa - many thanks.

I've put the 2 pulseaudio lines into /usr/bin/skype - running as root - no need for "su spot".

Cheers
peebee

[DM was on fire!]

text

Proposed changes didn't work.

Here is my hardware. I've been working fine on default soundcard (0). The headset is something I'll work on later, but I just want to get the basic sound working for now.

By the way, those of you seeking a method to log into Skype with 4.2, don't bother. Support for it is dead and gone.

[vicmz]

I took the dynamic version of Skype 4.3.0.37 from the website and repacked it along with 01micko's Qt libraries (including the plugins for avatar support) as before.

My pulseaudio-2.0-test.pet reduces the size of pulseaudio-2.0.w53orig.pet from 5977 K down to 1059 K and still works for me, so quite a significant reduction!

Both of these are uploaded to http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks for now. Strictly for testing of course, always take the usual precautions.

Hi OscarTalks

Working well here - both cam and mic with your provided default.pa - many thanks.

I've put the 2 pulseaudio lines into /usr/bin/skype - running as root - no need for "su spot".

Cheers
peebee

I couldn't test audio/video yet but the SFS for Slacko seems to work in OB-Precise 14.07.26, I only had to install libpng. I didn't install pulse-audio, I wonder if the screenshot attached below means I already have it built in.

[DM was on fire!]

That's how it sounds to me.

[saintless]

By the way, those of you seeking a method to log into Skype with 4.2, don't bother. Support for it is dead and gone.

Thanks for advice.
I'm happy to use Skype 2.1, 2.2, 4.0.0.8 and 4.2 with dead support:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 829#792829
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 895#792895

[watchdog]

Hi

...I can't start pulseaudio as root

No problem here running it as root in fresh frugal of Slacko-5.7
.

Confirmed. As root pulseaudio gives a warning but it starts and skype works. Tried my original pets in wary and the new OscarTalks' pets in slacko. I don't remember why I decided to run pulseaudio as spot user: I have experienced several pulseaudio's start fails in my attempts.

[stemsee]

I installed skype-4.3.037.pet and pulseaudio.pet from OscarTalks, I also had to install libpng14.so.14.pet which I made from an rpm package, running on EmSeeV2.2 (Dpup Wheezy CE)

I get the same warning about 'not intended to run as root.' but it works fine. After quitting skype I fired up vlc and played music normally without killing pulseaudio daemon. Skype must have killed it on exit. This Skype version seems a lot better.

[watchdog]

text

Proposed changes didn't work.

Try these settings in /usr/etc/pulse/default.pa:

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load-module module-alsa-sink device=dmix
load-module module-alsa-source device=dsnoop

What above works on both my laptop and the netbook using wary and my original pets.

[drblock2]

Downloaded and installed OscarTalks' skype-4.3.0.37-slacko14.0.sfs and the pulse audio pet pulseaudio-2.0-test.pet. As stemsee pointed out, libpng14.so.14 seems to be missing so I downloaded and installed his pet.

Starting pulse audio in root, as reported several times above, does work despite error message. The difficulty was that the sound level on receive was very low despite maximum settings for master and headphones in retrovol.

As I have the headphone jack connected to an external hifi system, I was able to solve this problem by simply turning up the volume on the amplifier.

I can also confirm that Skype terminates pulse audio on shutdown and returns control to ALSA.

Many thanks to watchdog, OscarTalks, stemsee and all the others who have contributed to this discussion. This is a real triumph. M$ made our existing linux Skype installations unusable and our guys got it up and running in less than a weeks time!

Bravo!

[OscarTalks]

Slacko has libpng14 but other Pups such as Precise and Wheezy do not. I think this dependency arises because the Slacko Qt libs are linked against it. Anyway I have added the libpng14 inside the private libs directory and I have also added the pulseaudio --start command to the launcher script. This is now uploaded to http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks as skype-4.3.0.37-experiment which works in Precise and Wheezy (although avatars and some other cosmetic graphical bling is not working in Wheezy for some mysterious reason - these do work in Slacko and Precise).

So if you now install the pulseaudio-2.0-test.pet and then install this Skype you should be able to just start it from the menu if you don't like using the terminal. You may still need to edit the sound device numbers if you are not using your default soundcard. This issue will tend to crop up if you are using a USB microphone or something like that. Using a headset which plugs into the jack sockets will more likely be using the default card which should only need you to work out the correct settings in Retrovol.

[Dpup]

I installed the Pulseaudio test and Skype 4.3 experiment pets in Slacko 5.7. . Used retrovol to setup mic. Skype works fine in HP dv6833, ASUS 1000HD, ASUS 1000HE.

Thanks, had tried several other tests but always had problems with audio.