SUSE & openSUSE

Dell Laptops with Internal Microphones especially the Dell Vostro 1500 with Intel HDA drivers may not work by default. This could be caused by the microphones being disabled on the Mixers. This might work on other Laptop hardware but unfortunately, I don’t have access to another laptop. But, if you came across a laptop on which this worked then please post a comment and we can add it to the list of supported laptops. Also, if there was a different way with which you have fixed, please post that as well.

The following procedure on KDE4 and GNOME should help you resolve the problem.

KDE4 Desktop

1. In the System tray, click on the “Speaker” icon and click “Mixer” button. To launch the KMix.

2. Click Settings from menu and select “Configure Channels”

3. Select Digital, Digital Input Source and Capture and click OK.

4. Now, place a tick for Capture and ensure Capture slider is fully up (or as much as you want)

5. Under Digital Input, select “Digital mic 1″

This should do!!!

To confirm if it is working try recording a small audio file as follows from a Terminal window.

opensuse11:~ > arecord -d 10 test.wav

This should record a small WAV file of 10 seconds. Play the WAV file with your favorite player and check if you can hear what you have recorded.

GNOME Desktop

1. In the System tray, right-click on the “Speaker” icon and select Preference.

2. Select “Capture: ALSA PCM on front” (not the Capture: ALSA Monitor… option) and Master. When you select this, you can see the volume is muted (slider is completely lowered). Raise it your required level. This should help.

Now try again as above to record a test WAV file.

opensuse11:~ > arecord -d 10 test.wav

This should help.