HOWTO: Skype with OSS4 on Ubuntu 9.10 Beta

[igorzwx]

Download "skype-static-oss" here:
http://packages.medibuntu.org/jaunty/

For i386, take these:
http://packages.medibuntu.org/pool/non- ... u4_all.deb
http://packages.medibuntu.org/pool/non- ... 4_i386.deb

Install them with such command:

sudo dpkg -i skype-static-oss_2.0.0.72-0medibuntu4_i386.deb skype-common_2.0.0.72-0medibuntu4_all.deb

Enjoy!

[Temüjin]

igor, thanks for your enthusiasm, but this is what we have the wiki for: http://www.opensound.com/wiki/index.php ... SSv4#skype

[igorzwx]

Hi Temüjin!

The Russians are now installing Unbuntu 9.10 Beta and hacking it in all possible ways.

They were not able to make Skype working with OSS4, although they did study the OSS4 Wiki.

EDIT: skype-static-oss is not yet in Medibuntu repositories for Ubuntu 9.10.
Of course, the obvious solution is to take it from 9.04, but some users may have a problem.

This is the solution that works well for them.

The Russians also want to have “notify-osd” working without PulseAudio.

Do you have an idea what “notify-osd” is and how it might be fixed?
Or we can happily live without such things?

Best,
Igor

[otakuj462]

igor, thanks for your enthusiasm, but this is what we have the wiki for: http://www.opensound.com/wiki/index.php ... SSv4#skype

The wiki seems old. It instructs you to download the static OSS version, and provides links, but both links resolve to the following address:

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/linux/choose/

Which is for the latest Skype beta. No mention of whether it supports OSS or not.

Jake

[cesium]

Hmm.. It seems like it the link leads to the new beta version, which doesn't have (yet?) a static OSS version. This link will let you download the 2.0.0.72 static OSS version. If you must use the latest version now, you might be able to get it to work via PulseAudio or ALSA emulation..

[igorzwx]

Hi Cesium!

Thanks for the link
http://download.skype.com/linux/skype_s ... ss.tar.bz2

The old "skype-static-oss" from Medibuntu works well on Ubuntu 9.10 Beta without PulseAudio or ALSA emulation.
http://packages.medibuntu.org/jaunty/

According to Skype developers, the new Skype does not require PulseAudio:

QUOTE:
Myth: Skype now requires PulseAudio.

No, it does not. If you run ldd on skype binary you will not see any references to libpulse, because we load it at run-time. This means two things:
1) If you do not have pulse installed, skype will happily work with alsa.
2) If you have pulseaudio autospawn enabled (default on most distros), even if you shut down pulseaudio manually or remove it from autostart menu, it will be launched once skype attempts to play a sound.

Some explanations - Skype for Linux
7 Sep 2009 ... skype" should work. Check sound options page - you should see devices called "PulseAudio Server (192.168.0.101)". I'd be interested to hear ...
http://share.skype.com/sites/linux/2009 ... tions.html

[bardu]

All links to skype-static-oss_2.0.0.72-0medibuntu4_i386.deb in this thread are death.

Could someone point me to this package (actually I need the package for amd64) or tell me how to fix Skype incoming call ringing issue in Ubuntu 9.10?

Thanks.

[igorzwx]

All links to skype-static-oss_2.0.0.72-0medibuntu4_i386.deb in this thread are death.

Could someone point me to this package (actually I need the package for amd64) or tell me how to fix Skype incoming call ringing issue in Ubuntu 9.10?

Thanks.

There is another package for skype-static-oss
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3561&start=15#p14505
by cesium » Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:18 am
http://www.mediafire.com/?2ydhmj4yo3i

But it might be for 32bits.

The simplest solution to all problems is to install Arch Linux
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3561&start=30#p14625

[cesium]

"Skype incoming call ringing issue"? What's that? You can use the tarball from the link igorzwx kindly reposted here.

Btw, AFAIK the Arch package uses the same tar.bz2 as source, so I doubt it changes anything. I wish people would complain to Skype to make a new OSS-based version available, or at least make the old tarball available...

[igorzwx]

"Skype incoming call ringing issue"? What's that? You can use the tarball from the link igorzwx kindly reposted here.

Btw, AFAIK the Arch package uses the same tar.bz2 as source, so I doubt it changes anything. I wish people would complain to Skype to make a new OSS-based version available, or at least make the old tarball available...

It seems that the new version of Skype is very different from previous ones. It cannot work without PulseAudio. The Russian Ubuntu/Arch users complain that after the removal of PulseAudio they cannot use microphone with Skype and ALSA. It does not work, or sound is heavily distorted. To be precise, microphone works with Audacity and other sound applications, but it does not work with Skype and ALSA, after the removal of PulseAudio. For this reason, many Russians changed back to Windows, others downgraded Skype, or installed skype-static-oss (it works well with ALSA too).

[tl1]

Did Skype stop providing OSS support?! Shouldn't we all go and start bugging them to resume it then?

[tl1]

I just tried latest static Skype in ASP Linux 14 (FC9-based) and it shows only PulseAudio. It s*cks because PulseAuido is an unconfigurable crap and there is no way to select certain dsp# on certain card. Is there any way to force Skype to use ALSA (if not OSS)?

[cesium]

I don't know about skype, but Pulse can be configured to use different OSS devices by editing default.pa and providing "device=" parameter to module-oss. (See here for how to get Pulse to work with OSS4). Don't know if it will work here, but maybe worth a shot...

[igorzwx]

I don't know about skype, but Pulse can be configured to use different OSS devices by editing default.pa and providing "device=" parameter to module-oss. (See here for how to get Pulse to work with OSS4). Don't know if it will work here, but maybe worth a shot...

It is virtually impossible to run Skype with PulseAudio.
90% of Ubuntu users remove PulseAudio exactly for this reason.

However, the new version of Skype fails to work without PulseAudio.
The only solution is to downgrade Skype (for ALSA), or install skype-static-oss.

[tl1]

I don't need to configure PulseAudio's defaults, I need to configure audio I/O per application, which is not possible. I have 2 sound cards, first one's input is connected to a mixing console out and is used for audio measurement and sound digitizing and the second one is used for Skype. I cannot swap the cards because the first one is also used as default playback device and putting it somewhere to /dev/dsp15 will cause so much PIA. Basically, PulseAudio makes any app which relies on it useless for me. Its appearance is the worst event in all Linux sound history ever (for me), everything worked more or less fine before it.