[pulseaudio-discuss] wiki perfectsetup for skype: solution doesn't work

[Colin Guthrie]

vatbier wrote:
> I'm not sure to what or who I should ask this question:
> http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup#Skype :
> Now launch skype whether from the run dialog or from a shell using the
> command "pasuspender skype". This momentarily suspends pulseaudio, and
> starts skype.

Indeed. pasuspender isn't really sensible with skype. Better to tell
skype to use the hardware devices and just "hope" that nothing is
playing sound when a call comes in :)

> If you're running skype all the time (like me, from login to logout, if
> you want to be able to receive skype calls), the momentarily suspension
> of pulseaudio becomes indefinitely. So pulseaudio becomes useless.
> If I'm correct about this, can someone put this info on the
> perfectsetup wiki page?

You are correct. Feel free to change it. It's a wiki :)

> When Mandriva 2008.1 comes out I'm afraid I'll have to disable
> pulseaudio just because of skype.

Yeah it's a shame, but please remember that this is not the fault of
Mandriva or any other distro adopting pulseaudio by default. It's the
fault of Skype for not supporting Alsa properly (or so it seems at the
moment).

> Pulseaudio people should pressure the skype developers to work with
> pulseaudio.

We're the open community, not them. There has been plenty of attempts
and pressure from users. It's up to them.

> Skype is for me (and a lot of other linux users) a must
> have application (Ekiga is not a viable alternative: last I used it, it
> crashed everytime with connection to Ekiga_win32). 

Ekiga works for me, but that's another story.

The fact is you are complaining to the pulseaudio list (and opensource
product) that skype (a closed source product) does not work properly. We
cannot fix skype, it's up to their devs  to do it. It will happen
eventually once more pressure is applied to them but that wont happen
until more distros ship this option by default. It's catch 22. They
don't really care about the linux users. The skype software is not super
complex... if they had more than one linux developer it would have been
miles further ahead by now. If they actually do have more than one dev
then is pretty embarrassing how little progress on the important parts
of skype has occurred.

</end rant on closed source, close protocol crap>

Col