Cannot record sound. Playing is OK-ish

[blaite]

The latest update to LMDE killed my recording. I think I have Pulsaudio.
I have not updated for some time. Like 3 months.
I used to have problems with Skype, but now there is just no recording possibility at all.

I have tried to use the in stock Record app, and it gave me an error. I had to install some packages. This helped. Recording would open and would record but the sound back was like a lot of nasty hard to listen stuff.
In Audacity it was the same. Maybe a bit better. You could actually recognize the sound used to be someone's voice.

I tried to look some more. But all I have now is no reaction on Audacity or Record. I am using in-built laptop's microphone. I always did.
Oh, and after installing the missing package, the playing got worse. When I want to skip some part of a song and just click in the middle, it makes this noise, as if I did that on old gramophone.

[ukbrian]

I gave up on the 2.6.39 kernel!!
Skype is a must for me I use the share screen function to give support to first time users.
I also use audacity to dub a sound track into a video with openshot, there's a great noise/hum filter, works great with xvidcap.
It makes me sound like donald duck on both apps when i use the mic.

Boot into an earlier kernel, the last good one was 2.6.37 but even the earliest kernel is better, things will work again.

I installed PcLinuxOS a kde distro using .rpm's not .deb's recently and I was impressed that I could download/install any kernel you wanted with 2 copy/pastes in the terminal,

I think Mint would benefit from having the older kernels available from the new Mint repo

it would satisfy the needs of an end user who relies/depends on a reliable/trouble free OS by just staying with the last solid kernel until another comes along, it might be after the next freeze?

I ditched Gnome and transferred to XFCE, i could only see grief as gnome 2 grows into 3 and I think it's sh*t

There's some great panel launchers in xfce
I digress, sorry

edit
I engaged experimental in the repos and installed the latest 3.0 kernel and i was still Donald F*cking Duck.

[blaite]

I gave up on the 2.6.39 kernel!!

But I switched my repos to squeezy, isnt it 2.6.37 ?
I might have it updated first to this latest kernel and than switched to stable. Can I somehow get it back?
I like thinks "to just work" and I am not a tweaking freak.

Skype is a must for me I use the share screen function to give support to first time users.

I never had that on linux, is it hidden somewhere?

I do not want to go to .rmp nor XFCE. I had troubles with both in the past. And I love Mint out of the box.

[ukbrian]

But I switched my repos to squeezy, isnt it 2.6.37 ?

I think it's 2.6.35 but little difference between the two, they are solid kernels.

I never had that on linux, is it hidden somewhere?

I think it's a blue icon at the bottom right of the video screen.

[blaite]

I think it's 2.6.35 but little difference between the two, they are solid kernels.

Eh, so sound problems somewhere else

I think it's a blue icon at the bottom right of the video screen.

Will check it right when it starts working. I was used to windows set up at work. Thanks!

[secipolla]

IMO you should point the repos back to testing and dist-upgrade again.
You probably had already a system newer than Squeeze and then you pointed the repos to it. I don't know what may have happened but pulseaudio isn't the default in Debian (it's ALSA) and the newer versions are better so I suspect you may even solve your problem by upgrading again to testing.
You could also use the LMDE specific repos instead http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1781 viewforum.php?f=185

The 'latest' LMDE repo will be made in a way that before you upgrade you will be able to check if something will need tweaking post-update so you'll be able, with care, to maintain a modern system and still keep in control.

[blaite]

IMO you should point the repos back to testing and dist-upgrade again.
You probably had already a system newer than Squeeze and then you pointed the repos to it. I don't know what may have happened but pulseaudio isn't the default in Debian (it's ALSA) and the newer versions are better so I suspect you may even solve your problem by upgrading again to testing.
You could also use the LMDE specific repos instead http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1781 viewforum.php?f=185

Thanks. The sound broke before I pointed it to squeeze, but I will try it again. If I does not work I have to wipe it out anyway.

[ukbrian]

Hi secipolla
I think my problems with the 2.6.39 kernel are down to Pulse, I recently installed AVLinux(Lxde) to look at the video editing on it and
that was using the 2.6.39 kernel but not Pulse, just Alsa and Skype, Audacity etc. all functioned correctly.

I guess I was wrong(again) blaming the 2.6.39 kernel.

I'm using the Xfce desktop and I will have to find the topic that showed you how to purge Pulse and replace it with Alsa.

I like the xfce panel launchers great space savers or mini menus http://lin.me.uk/vids/xfce-000.mpeg but ideally I would like to create my own customized xfce menus by copying/renaming a menu in /etc/xdg/menus.

I looked at " http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/me ... 0/menu.dtd" but that is too RTFM for my abilities.
Does anyone know of a good tutorial for customizing/tweaking menus, PSLinuxOS appeared to have a very good menu editor but quickly borked when I started using it.
ukbrian

[secipolla]

Hi Brian.
We're diverting from the topic, maybe..
I think you have to edit the Xfce menu by hand:
http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu
https://xubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/07/1 ... xfce-menu/
But there a GUI for that too: http://xfcemenuedit.mon-asso.org/index.en.html

As for pulseaudio, actually I'm using it here because I use Debian with GNOME 3 and it requires pulse (sid version)(I don't even have ALSA installed). It's working fine but I don't have a microphone. That's why my advice to blaite was nothing more than a guess.

[blaite]

IMO you should point the repos back to testing and dist-upgrade again.
You probably had already a system newer than Squeeze and then you pointed the repos to it. I don't know what may have happened but pulseaudio isn't the default in Debian (it's ALSA) and the newer versions are better so I suspect you may even solve your problem by upgrading again to testing.
You could also use the LMDE specific repos instead http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1781 viewforum.php?f=185.

Nothing worked, even removing pulseaudio. Alsa worked nice on sound but not recording. But there were some other dependencies problems after the update so I just switched to normal Mint 11. Works out of the box, even skype.
Sometimes a step back is a step forward
Thanks for ideas anyway.