I have an IBM ThinkPad A21m that came with Caldera Open Linux 2.4 preloaded. That means the Linux kernel is 2.2.14. It has both KDE and Gnome. When I enquired about the sound card while in KDE the response I received was that the driver was loaded as a module. The description was OSS/Free: 3.8s 2++-971130.

Neither in krecorder in KDE nor in the analogous program under Gnome am I able to record sound from a microphone. (This TP comes with a built-in microphone, but I am using one that I plug into the mike jack. And yes, that mike works on another machine. So, the mike itself is not the problem.)

Sound production itself is fine; my only problem is being unable to record sound.

If you are able to suggest a solution, please bear in mind that I am little more than a newbie with Linux.

Gratefully,
Bob Hueckstedt

Thanks to all for telling this newbie that in order to record I
needed to turn the microphone on (:-).

Unfortunately, no matter what I do, I seem not to be able to do that.
Something is not communicating with something.

What I have done so far is this:

I used KMix (in KDE) and GMix (in Gnome) to set, one by one, all the
possible recording sources on this machine. Those recording devices
are Volume, Line, Microphone (which I assume is the built-in one),
CD, Line 1, Line 2, Phone In, and Video. One by one, with KMix (GMix)
still "on", I then try the microphone I have plugged into
the microphone jack. With Krecord, or Gnome's Sound Recorder, I then
"record" a brief statement and try to play it back. No
sound. I then checked the Krecord capability to play a wave file, and
that worked fine. So, it can do that. I just can't seem to get it to
record.

The only difference I noticed between Gnome's Sound Recorder and
KDE's Krecord is that the former uses sox. I don't know what the
other uses in sox's place, and I don't know what "sox" are
anyway. And in any event, sound remained unrecorded no matter which
GUI or recording app I tried.

I suspect there is an easy answer to this. Something else that needs
to be "turned on"?

The KDE on this machine is 1.1.2. KMix is 1.0.1. Krecord is 1.5.

Grateful for any help.
Bob Hueckstedt

hi befuddled,

ah yes, sound recording.. i've had problems with this, too..

with the setup i have on two machines (both with different soundcards), i found that
i had to increase the IGain volume (which, i think, increases the output from the
soundcard's internal analogue - digital convertor, but don't quote me on this..) to
allow recording - then recording from all inputs was possible.

i found this out by trial and error. if you don't see an IGain slider in KMix, you might try
alsamixer (but i've found that sometimes doesn't work, lord knows why not..).

anyway, hope this helps - i'm very much a newbie too, and linux can certainly be very puzzling
(and annoying) at times.

cheers.