I'm sure this bug overlaps with other, more specific ones but I don't know 
enough about ALSA and mixers and sound drivers to know which ones, and that's 
exactly the point.

I just want to get the internal microphone to work on my ThinkPad T61 so I can 
communicate using Skype.

Ideally the out-of-the-box settings would just work, but even if they did, 
let's assume for the moment that I had somehow messed them up and wanted to 
make audio-in work again.

Problem 1: Which tool should I use to mess with the audio settings?  I use 
KDE, so the first place I go is the KMix applet, but I see lots of references 
to alsamixer. 

Problem 2: Both KMix and alsamixer are utterly baffling.  In KMix I see three 
tabs: Output, Input and Switches.  On the Output tab there are 9 sliders, 6 of 
which contain the word "Mic".  Some appear to have a toggle button that 
alternates between light green and dark green when I click them.  I have no 
idea what those are supposed to do.  What do Mic sliders have to do with audio 
Output, anyway?  On the Input tab there are 6 sliders, 2 of them 
named "Capture".  Each has a toggle button that alternates between light red 
and dark red.  Finally, on the Switches tab there are two toggle buttons 
(Headphone and Speaker) and two drop-down menus, both labeled Input Source and 
both with the same set of choices.  All I can say is, WTF????  alsamixer looks 
similar, but with the added bonus of keyboard-based navigation.

Problem 3: Is there a simple way to test audio-in without launching some 
heavyweight application like Skype that might introduce its own set of 
problems?  I just want a little program that displays visually what's coming 
in on the microphone so I can see that I'm being heard.  KRec looks 
deceivingly simple but I have yet to figure out how to use it.

Apologies for the rant, but having wrestled with audio settings since Red Hat 
4.something and seen no improvement in usability, I am waving the white flag.