No audio perceived/recorded from around/ambient.
 

I'm using a VAIO VGN AR250 G Notebook. Around a year ago I found the specific manual for the unit but don't know if it's within a dead VAIO laptop's hdd (IDE) or simply deleted by mistake. Now, I just find a 'generic' manual for the AR series only. Even though I know I read the manual at least once I don't remember if the unit comes with mic or not. Until now, I've assumed it's there, somewhere.
I'm using PL 511 (Frugally installed). Is there a way of knowing if my system recognizes a mic within the system?
Thanks!
PS. Yesterday I installed the WINE PET; for the moment I'm using a 120 GB hdd with 4 partitions (sda4=ext3, the others are ntfs). The pupsave & SFS files are in sda1, a separate folder was created to save some extra files for personal use, too. Does having WINE installed give me any advantage for dealing with this issue? The OS within the hdd is Vista ~MCE? Neither PL431 nor PL511 recognize/control all the devices within this notebook (multimedia buttons, an alternate CRT monitor). The hdd didn't come with this notebook.

Hi Benny7440, Please issue the following and post the results.

This should produce a list of capture devices.

Good luck. ;-)

Thanks Peacedog for responding! Below is the result:

# arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
#
PS. The other day someone told me to insert a 4-sector plug (like those used with cellular phones) into the headphone outlet of the laptop & it should work well..., I'm still thinking of it as a creation from a beheaded person; do you agree with me or I've missed something along the way?

It looks like you have a mic. You can test it with the following.

The resulting file should be a cd quality 30 second .wav file recorded by your mic.

Good luck. ;-)

Thank you, Peacedog, for your command! I've been wondering from where I can obtain a comprehensive list of commands for the linux console that include the those that I receive from time to time as the one you posted in...

I ran the arecord... command with/without anything connected to the mic jack but didn't hear a thing. I'm asking myself if it has something to do with the fact that I follow the following scheme as a daily routine: after booting up I start the FF browser, establish (if I need to) my HomePage(s) which are WQXR (internet radio) & yahoo email acct.. So, before running the command I was already reproducing audio. Didn't run the ALSA Wizard in between; needed to do so? Any other config need to be taken care of before recording/capturing audio?

You're welcome, but it's hardly my command. Here is a great place to start.

http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

A bit of Googling should produce more commands specific to the subsystems you're dealing with. Something like this.

Linux Alsa

I'm not surprised you didn't hear anything as you were recording. =D

Did you try playing the file after the recording?

Good luck. ;-)

Thanks Peacedog for responding!

When I say I didn't hear anything above I was trying to mean that I didn't hear anything after trying to play the file (various players), not while recording; something that should be possible if re-routing an alsa dev to a properly configured one.

Have tried all the different combinations there are with the alsamixer. Also with the ALSA config tool at Menu>Setup. From what I've read, specially today, I've learned it's fairly complete & alot might be configured with it. All this means it isn't necessarily easy to deal with it under certain conditions.

Without seeing what mixer options you have available I'd say your mixer needs some setup/configuration. The devices appear to be present. When you open alsamixer do you have capture controls? How about mic boost?

Good luck. ;-)

Something strange happened today, I was reading & practicing some commands &, even though I've not managed to record/hear my own voice yet, I did hear my embedded speakers reproducing the WQXR stream without a blemish. All started after I clicked on an included system sound file (think was '2barks.wav', but not sure) & Gnomeplayer started automatically to reproduce it. Afterward no problem with web streams.

If I change a setting in ALSA Mixer, do I've to close the related api & start it again for the change to take place?

Thanks for all your good info, Peacedog!

Changes in alsamixer should be saved on exit from the program. The changes will be lost on reboot unless you issue

Good luck. ;-)

In order to clarify my last post let me say exactly what I've been doing. Start 'mhWaveEdit1.4.16', select "Play" from the tabs, click on Record from the popup menu, click on "Launch mixer" from the tabs within this new window & then modify any setting in the mixer. After all this I click on "Start recording" within the last opened window & check the result within the main window of mhWaveEdit. If cannot hear anything click on "Play" again & repeat the rest of the steps above until I've exhausted all the possibilities.

Am I forgetting something crucial, like closing the mixer before starting recording? Or, maybe, closing both, the mixer & mhWaveEdit, & starting mhWaveEdit anew before attempting to start to record something? Haven't found anything as to what's the correct procedure for this...

Though I have no experience with mics in linux , I want to add , that

the default file in Puppy for the alsactl command is /etc/asound.state .

So it should be
The /etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown script normally takes care to run alsactl store ,
by running everything inside /etc/init.d/* stop .
In this case /etc/init.d/alsa .

Benny7440, In my experience, once you have the hardware configured properly it's usually a matter of telling the software package (any package) which hardware to use. I would stick with the mixers until you get something reproduced then try mhwaveedit once you know what settings to use. You may also want to try Audacity as well as mhwaveedit. Audacity is also free and it supports more file types and features.

Good luck. ;-)