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SL voice and Ubuntu 8.04 Beta

Garron Shepherd
Registered User
Join date: 25 Mar 2008
Posts: 1
04-14-2008 20:17
Has anyone ever successfully gotten voice working on Ubuntu 8.04 beta? I have the usual white dot over my head, yet I'm the only active speaker. According to the readme that means its an alsa problem, although technically everything is piped through pulseaudio. I disabled pulseaudio(so I think?) by killing the pulseaudio process, and changing my audio server to alsa via the multimedia systems selector(which is hidden by default). This did absolutely nothing for my problem.

I read somewhere that SL tries ESD and OSS before using alsa, and I know most sound servers didn't like to coexist, so I edited the secondlife run script to not use ESD or OSS. This caused my active speakers list to populate, but then regular secondlife sound stopped working!

Arggh!! Anyone got it working in Ubuntu 8.04?(or maybe playing nice with pulseaudio?)

Any advice?
Peace Howlett
Not a n00b
Join date: 1 Nov 2007
Posts: 53
04-15-2008 09:23
Same problem here, as far as I know, voice uses ESD as a sound server, which connects to the voice servers, and everything works happily (most of the time, lol). Now with 'Hardy Heron' all of us SL users will once again be left with a partially functioning viewer, as 8.04 will use 'Pulseaudio' as a sound server, there is a compatilbility plugin for esound, and is supposed to work with programs that still require ESD, such as SL voice, but this plugin don't work with SL voice, lol.

I did hear from someone here to install both ESD while pulseaudio is also installed (although it was aimed at another distro I believe), I tried that and was alerted that the pulseaudio compatibility plugin and desktop would need to be removed, I did so out of desperation, lol. Then my nice new 8.04 (although beta) would not load up at all, after the log in screen, it froze, I had to log in with just a terminal and reinstall the esound compat. plugin via command, it uninstalled ESD automatically and all worked again....oh.......apart from SL voice, so, I'm back to square 1, oh well.
Suntan Nadir
Registered User
Join date: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 22
Sort of works for me...
04-16-2008 03:22
I have voice working on Ubuntu 8.04, with pulseaudio and its esd compatability layer. However, the version of libopenal.so.1 shipped with 1.19.1 does not work at all, and the client continually connects/disconnects. Replacing the 1.19.1 version of libopenal with that from 1.19.0 allows voice to work again. I've not been able to get either of the versions of 1.20 to run long enough to even try getting voice to work :(

My setup is a DMX6Fire soundcard as the default for sound, providing the music/ambient sounds etc on SL, defaulting to esd as the soundserver (ie the pulseaudio compatibility layer for esd). The onboard soundcard is used for voice, with /etc/openalrc pointing to the appropriate alsa devices for mic and speaker (headphone) inputs and outputs.
Armin Weatherwax
Registered User
Join date: 4 Jan 2008
Posts: 71
04-16-2008 05:44
working here well on 2 different machines, both kubuntu 8.04 beta.
On both machines only esound is running, pulseaudio is not (and kde-specific: arts disabled, too).
The pulseaudio-esound-compat packet did cause popping sounds using voice on one machine (logitec usb headphone) and made me stay alone in my active speakers list on the other machine (C-Media CMI8738 Soundcard).

Hope that helps
Peace Howlett
Not a n00b
Join date: 1 Nov 2007
Posts: 53
04-17-2008 09:22
Thanks to the information provided by Suntan Nadir, above, I have successfully got voice to work with 8.04 (32 bit) !!!!. Although should work with 64 bit as usual, I'll be trying that out next week, lol.

This is what I did, after reading the posts above, I decided to mess around with 8.04 again. I booted into it, and changed the file 'libopenal.so.1', with the one shipped with 1.19.0.5, and before I got a chance to try it, I had some system updates pop up, which included 'pulseaudio-esound-compat', I thought to myself, "hmmmm, interesting", and installed it, lol. Then logged into SL as usual, and what do you know, voice worked !!! :D.

I got the old 1.19.0.5 from here,

http://download-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/SecondLife_i686_1_19_0_5.tar.bz2

Just install the latest 'pulseaudio-esound-compat' and replace the 'libopenal.so.1' with the old one in the libs folder of the older viewer (link above).

Again thanks for sharing the information and hope I have helped a bit too. And I too, cannot remain logged in long enough to test with the 1.20 versions, even with the new fixed version.

UPDATE:
I have had time to fully test the fix above and can confirm that people can hear me, but I CANNOT HEAR them. I now use the 64bit viewer by Michelle2, and use the wine trick to get voice and of course with this version, video in SL, but currently with 8.04 no music stream :(.
Suntan Nadir
Registered User
Join date: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 22
excellent stuff!
04-18-2008 09:09
Glad to hear someone else got it working too! :) I can confirm the 64bit version works fine.. cos that's what I'm using!
Llewelyn Mistral
Registered User
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 49
04-18-2008 21:06
I grabbed the library form 1.19.0.5 and replaced it, and it doesn't seem to have done any good, other than limiting my input and output devices to just 1 of each. :/ I'm running the 8.04 x64 RC, and the latest compat layer for EDS in the repository is 0.9.10-1ubuntu. What's the one you all are using?
Suntan Nadir
Registered User
Join date: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 22
8.04 Beta
04-19-2008 04:22
Make sure you have set /etc/openalrc to the device you are going to use for the mic and headphone. As an example mine is set as follows:

(define devices '(alsa))
(define alsa-in-device "plughw:0,0";)
(define alsa-out-device "hw:0,0";)

I have two soundcards, the onboard one and a DMX6Fire. They are seperately defined in /etc/pulse/default.pa, and pulse detection and HAL detection are turned off as neither seems to cope terribly well with the marginally exotic DMX6Fire. The DMX6Fire is set as the default card (consequently handles audio streaming and ambient sounds etc on SL), and the onboard is used for voice (defined through the /etc/openalrc file). Running the 0.9.10-1ubuntu version of the esd-compatibility layer for pulse.

YMMV :p
Llewelyn Mistral
Registered User
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 49
04-19-2008 07:04
It looks like the dropdowns in the SL client remain set to whatever I set them to under the 19.1 library when I switch to the 19.0, and don't list the others that show up under the 19.1. WHat should I have the dropdowns set to, any idea?

ALso I'm running 100% on onboard sound. When I do aplay -l and arecord -l I see:

card 0: CK8S [NVidia CK8S], device 0: Intel ICH [NVidia CK8S]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CK8S [NVidia CK8S], device 2: Intel ICH - IEC958 [NVidia CK8S - IEC958]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

and

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: CK8S [NVidia CK8S], device 0: Intel ICH [NVidia CK8S]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CK8S [NVidia CK8S], device 1: Intel ICH - MIC ADC [NVidia CK8S - MIC ADC]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Right now I'm not getting the reconnections, but I'm still not seeing anyone other than me on the list, with OSS selected in both dropdowns and the following in openAL:

(define devices '(alsa esd native null))
#(define alsa-out-device "default";)
(define alsa-in-device "hw:0,1";)
(define alsa-out-device "hw:0,2";)

I'm assuming the numbers are card,device. ANy ideas on what to try now?

I also don't have hardware mixing it looks like on the onboard.
Ange Zanetti
Registered User
Join date: 24 Jan 2008
Posts: 14
04-19-2008 08:20
Hey guys,
Im running Hardy Heron too, so as the post say i copied the files from the last version to the new one.
Now it seems to works but it don't :)

I have the others speakers in the éactive speakers" box. I can see the green stuff above their heads. I can also speak to them but i can' t hear them .....
I have sounds in SL but the voice don't worx. I put the volume to the max, zoom close to the av. nothing.

If anyone has a clue
Llewelyn Mistral
Registered User
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 49
04-19-2008 12:09
I changed the openalrc to:
(define devices '(alsa))
#(define alsa-out-device "default";)
(define alsa-in-device "plughw:0,0";)
(define alsa-out-device "hw:0,0";)

And copied over the SLVoice executable from 1.19.0 and now I connect and see people on the list if they're under 50m away, but when they talk I see the lines but hear nothing like Ange does. I also saw lines when I tapped my mike so it's transmitting too. I've got the volume on the alsamixer all the way up on Mic but it doesn't pick anything up if it's beyond a couple mm it seems, but that's a seperate issue.
Peace Howlett
Not a n00b
Join date: 1 Nov 2007
Posts: 53
04-19-2008 16:13
check the alsamixer volume control, sometimes certain mics (front or back) need to be selected, or even select line-in with some configurations, even check that u dont have an input or output muted, it sounds like its working but muted on your end to me, somehow.
Llewelyn Mistral
Registered User
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 49
04-19-2008 20:00
Yeah, I found the mic volume and got it loud enough, but that still leaves me unable to hear others same as Ange. They can hear me just fine.
Oni Dryke
Registered User
Join date: 9 Jan 2008
Posts: 1
04-21-2008 00:00
Having issues with being disconnected from the voice server.... the fix by using libopenal from 1.19.0.5 doesn't work - when I log in I am the only person in chat. Running Ubuntu 8.04
Llewelyn Mistral
Registered User
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 49
04-22-2008 06:57
I had to grab the slvoice app file as well from 1.19.0.5 before it stabilized, so give that a shot?

And does anyone have any idea how to get the output from voice to mix/work properly so I can actually hear it? When I tried dmix in the openalrc it just told me the device was busy/in use and bombed out.
Ange Zanetti
Registered User
Join date: 24 Jan 2008
Posts: 14
04-22-2008 12:01
I run the Windoze client trough Wine when i need the voice. its worx just fine
Llewelyn Mistral
Registered User
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 49
04-22-2008 13:56
I don't trust Wine'd SL to give as good a performance as running it native. It seems to respond better, even under lag, than the windows client, apart from this voice issue and sim crossing(though that could also be due to lag on the server end).

*pokes the people who do have it working* Any more thoughts on how to make it actually play the sound? I'm 95% sure it's a mixer issue, and the regular SL sounds are overriding the voice rather than being mixed. Has anyone had any luck setting the output to use pulse instead of hw or dmix?

*edit* Well that's just great.

After the last batch of updatesI just installed, Voice doesn't connect at all to the voice servers. Neither the 19.0 nor the 19.1 makes it. It could be connection problems, but my Wine'd WIndows client connected to Voice just fine. I'm also seeing this error, which I don't recall seeing before, and I don't know if it's connected:

(<unknown>:9914): Gtk-WARNING **: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-scim-bridge.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64

(<unknown>:9914): Gtk-WARNING **: Loading IM context type 'scim-bridge' failed
Ange Zanetti
Registered User
Join date: 24 Jan 2008
Posts: 14
04-23-2008 01:34
I'm not sure about lag. windows client seems to be better than the linux one. I don't have more lag with Wine+Sl than with the SL native...
But i have a bug in the display, i need to resize the windiw all the time because the tabs are out of it...
Peace Howlett
Not a n00b
Join date: 1 Nov 2007
Posts: 53
04-23-2008 11:11
Ok, I upgraded to 8.04 a day early, as its RC, I have fully tested voice, and cannot hear people using the previous fix, so now I use the 64bit viewer by Michelle2, and use the wine to run the windows voice files, and it works, only snag is we now have no music stream, at least in the 64bit version. By opening 'system monitor' and stopping the ' pulseaudio' service then starting a music stream, I after about 20 seconds get to hear it as usual, but have to re-enable 'pulseaudio' service as some functions do not work while this is disabled.

Just like to add this 64bit viewer works amazing with 7.10 64bit, and is the only complete solution that matches up to the Windows version I have yet to use.

I guess we are in for a lot of headaches with 8.04, at least for us SL'ers.
Llewelyn Mistral
Registered User
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 49
04-23-2008 13:31
Does her 64-bit version have the old UI and Nicholaz/CV patches?

Also, I found why my voice app was having problems connecting, though I haven't gotten home yet to test it for sure.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=763576
Apparently one of the updates to one of the 32-bit libraries broke some DNS thing, but installing the lib32nss-mdns package apparently fixes it.
Pygar Standish
Registered User
Join date: 15 Aug 2006
Posts: 25
04-28-2008 13:26
I'l throw some fuel on this fire...

I am using Ubuntu 8.04 right now and have no voice (of course). Last week I was still running ver. 7.10 and I had voice to an extent, but very intermittently at best- which is something that I notice about the malfunction of the voice client in 8.04, something is making it lose connection constantly. I am not a technical LINUX user (I am proof that Ubuntu is what it says it is: LINUX for everybody) so I have no modifications to the system so far, other than I can confirm everything appears to work right in ALSAmixer. There just seems to be something between the OS and the SL client that is shutting the voice off instead of letting it run as a constant process. Its seems to stop and re-start itself about once a minute, and doesn't seem to be a "lag" issue (it happens all the time regardless of activity, and other than no voice my SL client seems to run better than my windows one half the time)
Kristopher Tenk
Registered User
Join date: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 153
04-29-2008 14:50
I have 8.04 Ubuntu and voice works fine, though I did install esound so i could use skype and sl at the same time (only would would give me sound, without esound being present)
Llewelyn Mistral
Registered User
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 49
05-01-2008 02:51
Pygar: That's the known issue with the library that came with 1.19.1. You need to replace the copy of libopenal.so.1 that came with the install with a copy from a 1.19.0 install.