Walking in Light With Christ - hip0's personal blog on System Administration, Free Software, Computer Security and Religion

Debian Squeeze / Sid ( Unstable ), Skype 2.0.0.72 and pulseaudio fix microphone and sound issues

After I've recently upgraded to the latest current Debian Unstable release I stumbled upon many problems, many of which are discussed and fixes provided on the prevoius posts. One of the many terrible things I had to fix MANUALLY (I'm starting to hate that word), are the issues with sound and microphone in Skype. I'm using Skype 2.0.0.72, because skype_static-2.1.0.47 gives me worries, crashing every now and then. To fix my problems with sound and microphone while Googling I found this nice Aryn's Blog post .
Here is what worked for me to fix the issues.

Execute
1.  apt-get install libsdl1.2debian libsdl1.2debian-alsa 
libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio
2.  apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio
3.  apt-get install paprefs pavucontrol padevchooser

Next 

4.  open gnome-alsamixer and make sure your "Mic" is not muted 
(in some cases it might be some capture field muted ain't sure?)
5.  Start pavucontrol and make sure in the Input Devices 
the mute button is not selected
6.  Go to the gnome panel System -> Preferences -> Sound and 
make sure in the Input menu Microphone is not muted
7.  start aumix and Make sure your Microphone is 
"Mic" and "Igain" is not set to low volume
8.  Execute: alsactl store to make sure that alsa settings 
are not lost on system restart
9.  In your home directory edit ~/.asoundrc

And add
--- SNIP ---
pcm.card0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}
ctl.card0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}
   -----

10. Edit  /etc/libao.conf and make sure it contains default_driver=pulse
11. Edit ~/.profile and add: 
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse to it
12. Open Skype go to "Sound Devices" and 
set sound in, sound out and ringing options to:
HDA Intel (hw:intel,0)

If you're lucky with God's help and grace your skype's sound output and input via mic should be working just fine