skype popup message

[Catalin David]

Alain Muls wrote:
> Hi
>
> I use a philips voip0801 phone as a sound device for skype calls. It 
> is very handy, but I can not hear the phone ringing when someone wants 
> to call me. I enabled the popup notification in skype for incoming 
> calls, but honestly, I do not see the message. So I tried to use the 
> following script only for the incoming calls:
>
> xmessage -center -font -adobe-times-bold-r-*-*-25-*-*-*-*-* INCOMING 
> SKYPE CALL
>
> When my colleague phoned, he got a message I was having problems with 
> my sound card. Calling him form my phone was no problem at all, so the 
> sound card should not be th eproblem. Is perhaps the script hanging 
> the skype application? Or does someone have a better suggestion for 
> getting a real visible message when I have an incoming call.
>
> Tx/Alain

Nop ... It's not it. Are you listening to music or doing something else 
while being called?

The main issue here is between Skype and Ubuntu 8.04. To make the story 
short: Hardy implements PulseAudio, Skype does not want to implement 
PulseAudio and, therefore, it tries to use ALSA. ALSA tries to take over 
the sound card (because through alsa you, usually, output only 1 sound 
at a time, no multiple sources permitted, like in PulseAudio or dmixer), 
but, because it is used by something else already, it will fail and 
report "Problem with audio playback/capture" to the other person.

As for the popup, I think it should appear after a restart or so... 
don't know why, but it happened to me too and then, out of a sudden, it 
was on... (strange Skype)

Solution:
There is a guide somewhere on how to implement multiple sounds even for 
Skype, but I wasn't able to follow it: 
http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup(don't know why, but the link 
doesn't work for me... )
Also, a more brute force approach: 
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=790889
In the end, Google is your friend ... 
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=howto+skype+pulseaudio&btnG=Google+Search

Have phun,
Catalin