On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 11:44:36AM -0400, Paul M. Foster wrote: > I bought a Logitech C270 webcam, which is supposed to work in Linux. It > does, EXCEPT the microphone isn't picking up sound. I've checked in > alsamixer, and the microphone device can be selected.
When they gave me a USB camera/mic for meetings for work (thanks Covid), I pretty quickly learned that trying to run this device under ALSA was not for me. That's when I finally bit the bullet and installed Pulse Audio. Yours also appears to be a USB camera/mic (based on 1 minute with Google), so my advice may fit. The major problem with ALSA (for me, at least) is that it's damned near impossible to find any documentation on how to tell the computer, "OK, look, I've got two audio devices now. I'd like you to use this one for output, because it's where my speakers are plugged in. I'd like you to use that one for input, because it's a microphone." You'd think this would be pretty basic and simple, but it's not. Pulse, on the other hand, just works. At least for me. But there's a trick to it. You have to... NOT start Pulse Audio yourself. Don't put anything in your login or session-starting files. Nothing. If you do, it won't work properly, and you'll waste a whole lot of time. You have to let it start itself "on demand". That's it. That's the trick.
