Received 01/26/2009 16:37

eeePC 1000h + Ubuntu + Skype + full sound/mic

Hi everyone,

Just before LCA we purchased an eeePC 1000h [1] running Windows XP. Needless to say, Windows lasted approx 30 minutes before we installed Ubuntu. Unfortunately, under Ubuntu I've never been able to get full sound + microphone working with Skype, until now. Below is a very rough list of the steps I've taken to get Skype fully working with full duplex video and sound. These steps were performed using EasyPeasy 1.0 [2] - which I believe is based on Ubuntu 8.10.

1. Install a 2.6.28 kernel. The distro's haven't quite caught up with the latest kernel offering yet so I had to download and compile this external to apt. This version of the kernel is important as it includes the latest Alsa 1.0.18 which includes specific fixes for the Intel chipset used in the 1000h.
2. Once you have the new kernel up and running add the following line to your /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

options snd-hda-intel model=3stack-dig

3. Start alsamixer and insure that the 'capture' recording device isn't muted and has its volume at maximum.

4. Install Skype and add a launcher icon to your dock. Edit the properties of the launcher icon and change the command from 'skype' to 'esddsp skype'. This lauches Skype using the esddsp utility which redirects Skype's attempts to directly access the sound device through the Alsa layer instead.

5. Start Skype and in the audio properties untick 'Allow Skype to alter my mixer levels'.

Now, I haven't run these steps on a clean install so I MAY have missed something that I did early on during my random attempts to resolve the issue. If the steps above don't work for you please let me know via email and I'll update this post. These steps also fixed my headphone issue where the device continued to play out of the speakers even if headphones were plugged in. The only problem left is that the max volume still seems quite low. I'm going to experiment some more with this.

[1] eeePC 1000h
[2] EasyPeasy 1.0