Skype and TC 3.0

[bmarkus]

When I tried last time Skype on 2.x it was working just fine without any problems with ALSA and I got video cam working fine as well.

[tclfan]

Hi BMarkus,
Thanks. Indeed, from previously reported experience looked to me like it works with Alsa but not OSS.  Looks like Alsa is the only 'reliable' way out...
Also I noticed most of light Linux distros use Alsa rather than OSS.
I do not know what is their strengths and weaknesses, but it appears to me although Alsa is widely accepted and works with key applications such as Skype. What would be a compelling reason to use OSS then?
I am certainly for the lighter and better solution but I have not seen any experience of Skype working with OSS easily...

@TinyPoodle:
By 'Sound mess' I was not referring to TCL but in general to Linux distros, that users have to sort out each time, testing whether their applications work with one or the other sound drivers...
Sound (IMHO) has been historically neglected in Linux, way behind the curve what is expected in base configurations nowadays. This is probably because of lack of focus on standardizing on key functionality and rather dissipating the effort of thousands of developers to produce hundreds of me-too distros, and mostly loaded with bloat of less than professional software.
You may not remember early days of Linux. when focus was on important features of Linux, rather than perpetuating bloat, but I remember in early 1990's, when I was able to put in the first LiveCD Linux in my CD Rom drive and it booted, and played sound! Sound was built in!
This first Linux LiveCD distro was called Yiggdrassil...

[tinypoodle]

That is also related to concept/goal of a specific distro.

TC on the one hand side not including any non-essential subsystems like sound (toolkit!) and on the other hand side offering more than one choice of sound systems (build it your way!) could not be preconfigured for easy sound.
(I had actually tried OSS first - with criterium of being smaller - and was not happy with it at all, so i tried alsa and stuck with it)

If e.g. you would try geexbox which is a ~19MB distro focused on multimedia, there is a very high chance that sound and video will work right out of the box. 
Similar could possibly be achieved with a TC remaster which would end up in approxymately same size.

[tclfan]

@TinyPoodle,
To emphasize again, my complaint about sound support has nothing to do with TCL but with Linux in general. The goal is to make this function work in TCL, so installing key applications such as Skype is possible.
It has nothing to do with any 'Multimedia Distro' choice out there but rather with selecting the most effective configuration of TCL so it works and is easy to configure by user.
It is not a matter of selecting 'Another Linux Distro' to satisfy each specific need (perpetuating terribly fragmented Linux landscape) but rather to have one multi-purpose modular Linux that can do all that.
I went through many Linux distros over time and I can tell TCL is the best Linux out there for several reasons, some most important being:

1. Modular architecture of read-only components, which can be easily added.
2. Fantastic network support. None other Linux I tested comes close to TCL in network support if you forget those bloated ones I would not touch anymore...
3. Vision of TCL owner and TCL developers. Technology implemented the right way, withought redundant baggage. E.g. SliTaz (another great distro) is using HAL for Xorg, as well as other distros. However it was discovered by TCL developers HAL is not needed anymore and Xorg works just fine without it.
4. Fast development cycle.

TCL is the way and will grow in recognition. Just needs some 'showcase ISO's' or 'flavors' in SliTaz speak.

[tinypoodle]

Appears to me like my point has been misunderstood, so trying to elaborate:

Working hypothesis: Create a TC remaster of 19MB - size similar to geexbox.

Pros:

• very high chance that sound and video will work right out of the box.  (comparable to geexbox, as opposed to TC base)
• keeping all the multi purpose extendability of TC base (as opposed to geexbox)

Cons:

• No free choice of combination of audio/video player and sound system (as opposed to TC base)
• up to 9 MB of wasted space for users never in need of audio or video or content with a slimmer modular solution (as opposed to TC base)

[tinypoodle]

the way for TCL to become a primary communications LiveCD, that works an any machine...

I have netbooted TC many times on a 10 year old thinkpad lacking a hdd just to quickly have a VoIP phone handy.
Needed software:

• wireless_tools.tcz
• wireless driver as appropriate
• firmware-*.tcz (for NIC support)
• alsa.tcz [+deps]
• openssl-0.9.8.tcz (required by softphone)

as a softphone i use pjsua which is a self contained binary which I had compiled on a different system, but works nicely (upxed and squashed 472KB). only deps are openssl and libasound, latter already pulled when loading alsa.

Total size of installed software < 7MB 
tinycore could as well be replaced by microcore as X is not required

[tclfan]

Hi TinyPoodle,

This is quite interesting... Would you be willing to make an extension of pjsua? This would be appreciated.  If not possible, where can I find it? Binary that is...
Is pjsua a SIP client?
Thanks much.

P.S. Out of curiousity: Which Thinkpad model did you use (the 10 years old that is), was it 600 or 770?

[bmarkus]

Hi TinyPoodle,

This is quite interesting... Would you be willing to make an extension of pjsua? This would be appreciated.  If not possible, where can I find it? Binary that is...
Is pjsua a SIP client?
Thanks much.

P.S. Out of curiousity: Which Thinkpad model did you use (the 10 years old that is), was it 600 or 770?

For more info see http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/PJSUA It is a work in progress to make the extension.

[tinypoodle]

I would certainly be open to attempt to make my first public extension if there is a demand.
However:

• it is not compiled under TC and i don't have any plans for a dev environment under TC with limitations of my hardware currently available
• it is compiled on a system with openssl.0.9.7 and therefore requires a dirty (cosmetically) hack of symlinking libssl.so.0.9.8 and libcrypto.so.0.9.8 to *.0.9.7, which has always appeared to work perfectly well though
  
• it is version 1.0.3, latest of the 1.0.x branch; I failed at compiling the trunk version (see details about difference here: http://www.pjsip.org/download.htm)
  

I haven't studied the fineprint of preconditions for submission of extensions, but i suspect with points mentioned it might not qualify.
Also i wouldn't want to interfere with WIP, particularly not by providing a binary while knowing that I would not be in a position to update it in the future as a maintainer.
In case WIP is happening on trunk branch - bmarkus can you tell? - i guess the versions of two different branch could potentially coexist though, as happens with other apps.

As for uploading somewhere, I would happily do so and post a link, but not sure if appropriate in forum.

And hey, I said the thinkpad is 10 years old - not older -, it's a A20m (PIII@700Mhz)

[tclfan]

For more info see http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/PJSUA It is a work in progress to make the extension.

BMarkus,
Thanks. By saying it is work in progress to make an extension, I understand it is not mature enough to make an extension. Or you mean making extension of this is already a work in progress...

TinyPoodle,
Thanks for the info. I see that the entire process you implemented is not exactly easy for me to replicate. It would be fantastic to have a SIP client extension but I understand it requires non-trivial amount of work.

[curaga]

tclfan, we already have at least one SIP extension, linphone?

[bmarkus]

For more info see http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/PJSUA It is a work in progress to make the extension.

BMarkus,
Thanks. By saying it is work in progress to make an extension, I understand it is not mature enough to make an extension. Or you mean making extension of this is already a work in progress...

TinyPoodle,
Thanks for the info. I see that the entire process you implemented is not exactly easy for me to replicate. It would be fantastic to have a SIP client extension but I understand it requires non-trivial amount of work.

It means that I'm working on to make an extension. PJSUA is a sample application built on the pjproject VoIP framework. It requires a bit more work than usual applications to find which components are needed as it comes mixed with many other stuff which are not needed, Python tests, etc. PJSUA starts, but not tested yet with my home VoIP server (Asterisk).

So it will come in the next days if everything works well.

[tinypoodle]

IIRC, I ended up with a plethora of built executables.
The only file i still have as of today is pjsua-i686-pc-linux-gnu, which appears to work fine with one single exception noted: recording calls to mp3 does not work at all (while it does to wav), so I could imagine other files of build might be required in order to record to mp3.

Good to hear, bmarkus 
curious... already decided from which branch?

[nick65go]

Dear all, I would like to report the success of Skype OSS and TC 3.0, I have both sound/microphone and video webcam working. I use only OSS for sound drivers. Here are the files and configuration for my Dell Mini Inspiron 910:

Warning! delete alsa-module from v4l-dvb-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz.DEP first, it is not need
from command: cat /mnt/sda4/tceUSB/optional/skypeOSS.tcz.DEP manually created

OSS.tcz
v4l-dvb-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz
libasound.tcz
Xorg-7.5-lib.tcz
fontconfig.tcz

skyOSS.tcz extension manualy created:
tmp/tcloop/skypeOSS/:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x    3 tc       staff           26 Aug 25 17:57 ./
drwxrwxr-x   37 root     staff          740 Aug 26 13:18 ../
drwxr-xr-x    3 tc       staff           28 Aug 25 17:57 usr/

/tmp/tcloop/skypeOSS/usr:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x    3 tc       staff           28 Aug 25 17:57 ./
drwxr-xr-x    3 tc       staff           26 Aug 25 17:57 ../
drwxr-xr-x    5 tc       staff           60 Aug 25 18:24 local/

/tmp/tcloop/skypeOSS/usr/local:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x    5 tc       staff           60 Aug 25 18:24 ./
drwxr-xr-x    3 tc       staff           28 Aug 25 17:57 ../
drwxr-xr-x    2 tc       staff           72 Aug 25 18:32 bin/
drwxr-xr-x    4 tc       staff           44 Aug 25 18:05 share/
drwxr-xr-x    2 tc       staff           31 Aug 25 18:25 tce.installed/

/tmp/tcloop/skypeOSS/usr/local/bin:
total 19848
drwxr-xr-x    2 tc       staff           72 Aug 25 18:32 ./
drwxr-xr-x    5 tc       staff           60 Aug 25 18:24 ../
-rwxrwxr-x    1 root     staff     20322884 Nov  8  2009 skype-oss-2.0-i686
-rwxrwxr-x    1 tc       staff           58 Aug 25 18:31 skypeOSS.sh

/tmp/tcloop/skypeOSS/usr/local/share:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x    4 tc       staff           44 Aug 25 18:05 ./
drwxr-xr-x    5 tc       staff           60 Aug 25 18:24 ../
drwxr-xr-x    2 tc       staff           36 Aug 25 18:10 avatars/
drwxr-xr-x    2 tc       staff          565 Aug 25 18:06 sounds/

/tmp/tcloop/skypeOSS/usr/local/share/avatars:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x    2 tc       staff           36 Aug 25 18:10 ./
drwxr-xr-x    4 tc       staff           44 Aug 25 18:05 ../
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff         3171 Jan 18  2010 Fax Skype.png

/tmp/tcloop/skypeOSS/usr/local/share/sounds:
total 1254
drwxr-xr-x    2 tc       staff          565 Aug 25 18:06 ./
drwxr-xr-x    4 tc       staff           44 Aug 25 18:05 ../
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff       117234 Jun 21 18:52 CallRingingIn.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff        80846 Jun 21 18:52 CallRingingOut.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff        47516 Jun 21 18:52 VoicemailReceived.wav
...
/tmp/tcloop/skypeOSS/usr/local/tce.installed:
total 1
drwxr-xr-x    2 tc       staff           31 Aug 25 18:25 ./
drwxr-xr-x    5 tc       staff           60 Aug 25 18:24 ../
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff           38 Aug 25 18:28 skypeOSS

my main program to start skype is in /usr/locale/bin/skypeOSS.sh, as:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/skype-oss-2.0-i686 --disable-api

Important!
download the OSS version of skype 2.0.72 from ARCH linux distribution, NOT from ubuntu or skype site.
for microphone to work, you select /dev/sp2 as Sound_in from skype internal menu.

PS: here are my loaded modules, from lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted
uvcvideo               41892  0
videodev               25016  1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat             9020  2 uvcvideo,videodev
i2c_i801                5748  0
i2c_core                9380  2 videodev,i2c_i801
oss_usb                90348  0
oss_hdaudio           135956  0
osscore               542900  2 oss_usb,oss_hdaudio
b43                   119468  0
mac80211               87580  1 b43
cfg80211               73276  2 b43,mac80211
squashfs               14728 28
ramzswap               10240  1
loop                    8068 56
scsi_wait_scan           276  0
ac                      1696  0
battery                 6028  0
video                  12712  0
backlight               1632  1 video
output                   724  1 video
sdhci_pci               4144  0
sdhci                  10392  1 sdhci_pci
mmc_core               27968  1 sdhci
r8169                  22516  0
ssb                    20640  1 b43

If use wish my settings for ossxmixer,
(customized then saved with sudo savemix  -v, loaded with sudo savemix -vLf /opt/mixer.save)
cat /usr/lib/oss/etc/mixer.save
# Automatically generated by OSS savemixer - do not edit
# High Definition Audio ALC268
$startmix PCI02b01028-0000:00:1b.0-mx01
jack.int-speaker.mode 0000
jack.int-speaker.mute 0000
jack.int-speaker.speaker 2070207
jack.int-speaker.speaker-mute 0000
jack.green.mode 0000
jack.green.mute 0000
jack.green.headphone 2070207
jack.green.mute.headphone 0000
jack.green.mute.speaker 0000
jack.pink.mode 0000
jack.pink 18f018f
jack.pink.mute 0000
jack.int-mic 18f018f
record.select.select1 1850185
record.select.select2 0000
record.select.select3 1850185
record.select.select4 0000
vmix0-enable 0001
vmix0-channels 0000
vmix0-src 0000
vmix0-outvol fa00fa
vmix0-invol fa00fa
vmix0.pcm4 fa00fa
vmix0.pcm5 fa00fa
vmix0.pcm6 fa00fa
vmix0.pcm7 fa00fa
$endmix

Extra info, NOT need for skypeOSS, but to customize level of sound in general:
I obtained this settings by running
ossrecord -vt2 /tmp/mytestsound.wav
ossplay /tmp/mytestsound.wav

Be aware about linking recording device! If it is not correct, create yourself the right one.
Audio devices, from ossinfo -v9
HD Audio play speaker        /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm0  (device index 0)
HD Audio play headphone  /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm1  (device index 1)
HD Audio rec select   /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcmin0  (device index 2) <--/dev/dsp2 in skyype
HD Audio rec select        /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcmin1  (device index 3)

Nodes, from  ls -alR /dev/dsp*
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            26 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            26 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp0 -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            26 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp1 -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm1
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            28 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp2 -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcmin0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            28 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp3 -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcmin1
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            26 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp_in -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            26 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp_mmap -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            26 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp_multich -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            26 Aug 26 15:24 /dev/dsp_out -> /dev/oss/oss_hdaudio0/pcm0

I REALLY love this TC 3.1rc1 as I have out of the box control for brightness, on Fn-keys
Thank you TC team, I systematically watch your work

[tclfan]

@Curaga,

Thank you. Sorry I forgot that one. I will see if this one works for me...