mic coming out speakers
 

A long time ago I typed something into bash that resulted in my laptop mic input coming out my speakers. I haven't had any need to use my mic since then, but now I do, and cannot for the life of me figure out how to get it to work again. I've done some general googling around, and have looked at various people's problems with /dev/mixer and /dev/dsp, but don't know where else to look. Anyone have a suggestion?

Well, if you have gnome or kde running, you can open the volume control - If you don't see the mic-in in the playback panel, go to the preferences and check it. Then you should just have to un-mute and turn it up.

I've got gnome, and have checked the settings in the volume manager several times. The mic is un-muted and turned up. The device is definitely working, as I can here its input coming out of the speakers, but that is exactly the problem. Since it is coming out of the speakers, no other programs can use the mic input.

No, that shouldn't matter. You can monitor it and record it at the same time...
So what's the problem? Are you trying to record? VOIP? What doesn't work?
For my soundblaster live, I had to put in the AC97 and AC97 capture channels. They just need to be there, doesn't matter how they are set, I think. Maybe that helps.

Yes, I'm trying to do voip, Skype to be specific. All I remember about that long ago command that ran afoul with my microphone is that it involved pipes and /dev files. Needless to say I've since learned to be more careful of what I type as root.

I am new here, how do I make a board/post? I have a question to ask.

Go into the forum most fitting for your topic and click "new thread."

I'd remove the device in BIOS & let Linux re-install it
 

Whatever distro you're using, nowadays will probably detect & properly configure your sound card. Why not just reboot, disable the sound card in BIOS, reboot, re-enable, and do whatever you originally did to configure the card normally? As long as you don't do anything horrendously stupid this time ...