Fixing Skype Sound Problems on Linux
Skype’s backend is based on OSS. This causes Skype to have many problems with full-duplexing. OSS is fairly old, I think it already served it’s purpose and served it well, but that’s about enough, move on to ALSA already.
On Linux, Skype’s not a very good citizen, so if you’re getting “Problem with sound device” errors and “/dev/dsp-1: Device or resource busy” errors, here’s what to do:
- Install
alsa-osspackage, wraps around software that uses OSS and makes it ALSA-compatible. Most distributions (at least Fedora, Ubuntu and Arch) call this package the same. - Run
aoss /usr/bin/skype - (Optional) Rename
/usr/bin/skypeand put a bash script in its place to runaoss - Enjoy free calls!
Update: You don’t need to this anymore because Skype have already released an ALSA-compatible version for Linux. Let’s go nuts.
5 Responses (Add Your Comment)
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thomas Jul 23, 2006at 3:33am
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Same problem I’ve this error message too, but just once.
Reply -
Darth Maul Feb 15, 2007at 9:13pm
In my case, everything seemed to be set up right but still I was getting the ‘problem with sound device’ when skype was using ALSA as it’s audio system. I switched to OSS (after installing alsa-oss) and I stopped getting ‘problem with sound device’. So far, so good…
Reply -
Apparently the ALSA module in skype is not perfect, and I needed this trick in order to be able to “hear my own voice” ni the skype test call.
So, Thank you! ;-)
Reply -
kavitha Oct 1, 2007at 6:12am
sound device problem
Reply
hello there,
thanks for this suggestion.
I tried it and it had a weird effect on my
skype… Before, I sometimes had the
‘problem with sound device’ problem and
sometimes skype worked fine.
with the aoss command, skype on the
one hand seems to be working better
(no ‘problem with sound device’ message
anymore and skype connects my call
(ringing, time starts ticking) but
unfortunately I cannot hear anything
from the person on the other end.
In the terminal window where I typed the
aoss command, the line
read error, res = -1 , handle = 29
is written about a hundred times or
more.
Does anybody know what is happening?
greetings,
thomas