Voice/Linux Sound Settings

Sound Settings for Voice on the official Linux Client

Do you use voice on the Linux Viewer? If you do, please add the sound settings that work best for you.

We will tabulate the settings; for now, please add

• the linux distro and version you are using
• relevant hardware specifications > CPU type, sound card type etc.
• headphone or microphone type (USB, via soundcard etc.)
• the sound system architecture you are using: ALSA, ESD, or OSS
• the specific sound card driver your sound system is using (for example: snd_hda_intel)

Thank you!

Reported Settings

Ubuntu

• Ubuntu 7.10
• listening: ok, some glitches while zooming around
• speaking: not tested
  • motherboard: Asus P5B SE
  • CPU: Intel Dual Core
  • sound card: 82801H (integrated)
• speakers via sound card / no microphone
• ALSA 1.0.14-1ubuntu2
• snd_hda_intel

Ubuntu

• Ubuntu 7.10
• listening/speaking: NILL (white dot but can not hear or speak)
• Alsa is selected in devices under voice settings.
  • motherboard: Asus K8vSE Deluxe
  • CPU:AMD athlon 3000+
  • sound card: (on board chip) VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller
• speakers and headset via sound port, no USB devices
• ALSA 1.0.14-1ubuntu2
• Esound version 0.2.38
• OSS

Debian

• Debian unstable --Tx Oh 15:10, 23 February 2008 (PST)
• listening: ok
• speaking: ok
  • notebook: lenovo N200 3000
  • CPU: Intel Core2 Duo
  • sound card: 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) / snd-hda-intel
  • kernel: 2.6.24 (http://kernel.org/)
• speakers and microphone via sound card
• ALSA via kernel
• pulseaudio version 0.9.9-1
• with the following work arround in the Secondlife directory:

$ cp SLVoice SLVoice.bin
$ cat > SLVoice << EOF
#!/bin/sh

padsp ./SLVoice.bin \$*
EOF

Technical Background

Voice in Second Life uses Vivox technology that is based on RTP (using the oRTP library), SIP (using the amsip library from Antisip), OpenAL, TinyXPath, OpenSSL, and libcurl for the transmission of voice data. The positional 3D audio is achieved with technology from DiamondWare. These technologies are contained in external daemon software that is started and stopped by the Second Life client.

You can find the official ViVox documentation on the JIRA.

The SecondLife viewer handles configuration, control, and display functions, but the voice streams (from the microphone and from the Vivox voice server) do not enter the viewer. Unfortunately the source code for the external SLVoice daemon is not available due to contractual obligations between Linden Lab and Vivox.