Warning — This did not work, and I ended up going to Fedora instead! So, don’t try this at home!
I just tried to record a tape by hooking the headphone jack of my stereo to the microphone jack on my laptop. I used Audacity to try to record the tape, and it would have worked if it wasn’t for a bug with Ubuntu/PulseAudio. My laptop would only record from the built-in microphone. It acted as if the external mic jack wasn’t even there. I tried to adjust settings in the audio settings and the alsa mixer. Nothing seemed to fix it.
So, I decided to try to update Pulse. This is risky, but hey, it wouldn’t work anyway. Why not make things worse!
First, I checked my current version.
skp@pecan:~$ pulseaudio --version pulseaudio 0.9.22-24-g67d18
Then, I tried to install the “PulseAudio daily builds” PPA. Here’s the command:
skp@pecan:~$ sudo add-repository ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/pulse-testing [sudo] password for skp: sudo: add-repository: command not found skp@pecan:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/pulse-testing Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80/ --recv 4E9F485BF943EF0EABA10B5BD225991A72B194E5 gpg: requesting key 72B194E5 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com gpg: key 72B194E5: public key "Launchpad Ubuntu Audio Dev team PPA" imported gpg: Total number processed: 1 gpg: imported: 1 (RSA: 1)
Next, I opened update manager:
skp@pecan:~$ sudo update-manager [sudo] password for skp:
Now, I realized too late, that I hadn’t done an update yet, but I found I had a few pending updates that I didn’t know about. So, I installed those first before worrying about the pulse updates.
Then, I clicked the “Check” button and I saw all of the pulseaudio updates. So, I installed once again.
Now, the pulseaudio version is very weird!
skp@pecan:~$ pulseaudio --version pulseaudio 0.98-201107121852
Update: I just tried my mic out in Fedora 15. Audacity records correctly from the external mic when it is plugged in and the built-in mic when the external is not. Many other things in Fedora don’t work, but sound works well!