Has anybody found SL to be a credible and reliable platform for audio
and video, in particular skype or do we need to be thinking of a more
consumer-orientated distro such as ubuntu?

I ask because a user asked to to install skype. Skype installs fine and
the video and audio _appear_ to be supported but...

* The video plays on the screen when I test it but skype doesn't seem to
recognise it.

* Audio output works but I cannot record. 

* Trying to record on a different machine for testing gives the helpful
message:

        ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1008:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open
        slave
        aplay: main:583: audio open error: No such file or directory

The impression I get from google is that linux audio recording is, shall
we say, "interesting". I'm hoping that somebody will be able to make it
uninteresting by saying "if you use this card, this camera and this
recipe it will work reliably".

Many thanks if you can.


John