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Comment by greenwich26 | Hacker News Reader

The audio quality of the inbuilt microphone on my laptop is much worse in Linux, than on Windows. I've tried some fixes on StackExchange but it doesn't really help. Has anyone encountered this? And if I buy an external microphone: how do I know it won't have the same problem? Has anyone had good experiences with microphones on Linux (specifically Ubuntu 20.10?) Is it some sort of driver/firmware problem?

Nowadays I have to switch to Windows (dual boot) when I have an important presentation or call, which is really annoying. But I've literally had people spontaneously tell me my audio is crap (on Linux) or great (on Windows).

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Shot in the dark, but many of my Linux coworkers have a problem where their video chat software sets their mic volume/gain to 100%, which causes horrible sounding clipping. Check your mic gain settings and perhaps disable the automatic volume equalization in whatever video call software you're using.

This is killing me right now. :( And I'm not finding a clear "this disables it" setting.

For the record, I'm trying to use Google Meets and it seems to be the culprit in what is doing the "push it to 100%".

I ended up buying an audio interface that has no digital volume control, only analog, so applications cant mess up the levels at all. Its amazing how conferencing apps just think that 100% is better.

I've had issues on PopOs 20.04 and 20.10 with microphones connected through the audio jack. Connecting through a cheap jack-to-USB converter eliminated the background noise. There were proposed fixes although none of them worked. Jack-to-USB converters are apparently not recommended[1] due to wildly varying quality though.

On PopOs 20.10 I'm currently getting good audio from a ModMic USB. This[2] review is what made me buy the ModMic USB, although I know next to nothing about audio and audio quality.

The Audio Technica ATGM2[3] was also considered, but the mounting options for the ModMic USB as well as lower cost in my area won me over.

For me a headset mounted mic was a requirement due to space considerations and slightly lower cost, although next time I'm probably buying a very high quality free standing microphone.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1v1jtHz4C0 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qquo2GpSQo4 [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIeJMdv5jxs

"Has anyone had good experiences with microphones on Linux"

I've not had any issues with external mics and usb interfaces. Onboard mics aren't really that good to begin with; you'll want to get some sort of external lavalier mic, or a condenser or cardioid dynamic. Onboard mics and other omnidirectional mics aren't great because they pick up sounds from all over. A cardioid polar pattern helps a lot with cutting down on sound.

I can recommend USB speaker phones/headsets like the Jabra Speak series. Anker recently released their own series as well and there's also beyerdynamic phonum. The big benefit is that noise cancellation is builtin and USB sound is sufficiently standardized that there shouldn't be any issues.

Though I went to the trouble recently to configure builtin pulseaudio noise cancellation and got quite good results as well.

Likely just a driver issue.

I actually had the opposite situation with Ubuntu 20.04 on my desktop, got a lot less noise from my mic port under Ubuntu for some reason.

"just a driver issue"

Oh. Just a driver issue on Linux. Well then, problem solved.

"Just a driver issue", unless it's a temporary regression in the Linux drivers, basically means the hardware manufacturer didn't use standard interfaces or write a good-enough spec for interoperability.

Solutions are calling your manufacturer and filing a support request, or voting with your wallet and picking another manufacturer next time.

How many hardware manufacturers tell you that their device is supported on linux?

Lenovo, Dell, Intel, Realtek, nvidia, Logitech, Samsung, AMD and many other big brands tell me clearly on their product spec that their hardware supports Linux. It's not like there is a shortage of choice.

Oh, can you tell me then, of a Laptop with Touchscreen, good hardware and Linux support?

I have been looking for one since ages.

Thinkpads and a lot of Dell laptop models both have good hardware and Linux support. I cannot recommend a laptop with a touchscreen, as I have never used nor needed one.

Dell XPS 15 or 17?

I had a Matebook X Pro and it worked really well with Ubuntu but the battery life was terrible in Linux. Maybe it's something that's been fixed or can be tweaked.

Battery life on linux laptops can be indeed improved by tweaking, I did so on various devices. But I never came close to windows battery life and I allmost bricked a brand new laptop while doing so (only save was to tear it apart). So beware of what you are doing.

Thinkpad X1 Carbon, although I'm not sure what the touchscreen support actually looks like (I bought the Windows version of the machine and installed my own Linux distro)

Hah, that's a good one. Voting with your wallet never helps when you are a niche within a niche, like a Linux user.

Either you can install good proprietary drivers from the manufacturer, or they don't exist and you have to make do with the open source ones.

Virtually all microphones are USB, and USB Audio is very, very standard. This is likely to be a mixer settings issue.

I've been using a Blue Yeti with Debian for several years now and have no problems at all with that. (It is annoying how often video conferencing problems are solved by reloading a web page or restarting the browser, though.)

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