Making Skype and Ubuntu 8.10 get along, specially on the AA1

November 30, 2008 Making Skype and Ubuntu 8.10 get along, specially on the AA1

As you may or may not know, the current version of skype does not work out of the box in Ubuntu 8.10. The solution can be simple or farelly complex. It depends on how the system is dealing with your soundcard. The following is a screenshot of the audio configuration that works on a lot of computers, AA1 included.

That wasn't that hard

Now, if you by any chance followed my guide to install Ubuntu 8.10 on the AA1 or installed the normal Ubuntu, this won’t work. To make it work, I checked the ubuntu wiki. I ended up refering to the arch wiki and install the newest alsa. In my opinion it’s the best way to go. It now fully supports the AA1’s sound card. At least that’s what they say.

It’s farelly simple

Download the latest source from ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.18a.tar.bz2 and  extract it to your home folder. To compile you can do it in the terminal like this

sudo bash
cd alsa-driver-1.0.18a
./configure --with-cards=hda-intel
make
make install-modules

The make command will take a while, but if it ends with “ALSA modules were successfully compiled.” you know you’re good to go.

Next up edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base with something like

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

And add at the end

options snd-hda-intel model=acer-aspire

Now reboot (will take a while) and everything should be working. To control the mic volume you need Gnome ALSA Mixer, the package is gnome-alsamixer.

And access it in Applications->Sound & Video. If it looks like this, your installation went ok

Gnome ALSA Mixer with latest alsa

End of story, skype should now be working with the configuration of the first post. The mic volume is the capture level, and don’t ask me about the internal mic, I don’t use it and honestly don’t care.

Linux audio sucks.

Tags: 1.0.18a, 8.10, AA1, acer, alsa, aspire, audio, compile, from, how, install, latest, one, playback, problem, problems, skype, solution, source, to, ubuntu, version, with

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• Posted under AcerAspireOne, bugs, software