PipeWire 0.3.26 Released With Better Bluetooth Support, Up To 64 Channel Devices

[Mez']

been using pipewire on arch for a few months and absolutely no issues. ill never use plain pulseaudio again. unless you have some niche audio setup i don't see a reason not to use it.

I wouldn't use it with a receiver yet personally. I'll wait for it to mature before using it on my desktop. But on my laptop with a very simple setup, I've been using it and it mostly works.

Those bluetooth changes are welcome though, a couple weeks ago I still couldn't pair my earbuds properly.

[cyberwizzard]

If it works so well for Fedora and the like, I wonder why Debian and Ubuntu doesn't use it ?

I remember when plain ALSA was the de-facto way of outputting sounds; when you had a decent driver multiple programs could produce sounds without issues.

Then PulseAudio came and promised to provide audio-muxing regardless of the underlying hardware or even multiplex sound streams on the fly to difference devices (and using a *GUI* !) The downside was that it lagged quite a bit and randomly stopped working - but it had loads of cool new features and seemed to be used by everyone so I kept trying it on Gentoo.
It took years before it was the decent audio sub-system everybody used.

I have a complete déjà vu feeling with this new framework - sure it seems to improve on the current standard and expectations of users have changed quite a lot over the years; but I for one will happily wait for it to mature before my main distro switches over...

[jabl]

I remember when plain ALSA was the de-facto way of outputting sounds; when you had a decent driver multiple programs could produce sounds without issues.

Yes, though multi-channel HW were becoming increasingly rare? There was dmix, which was a bit limited, and sound servers like esd or arts that were shit. Pulseaudio was a (over)ambitious project to replace all those.

I have a complete déjà vu feeling with this new framework - sure it seems to improve on the current standard and expectations of users have changed quite a lot over the years; but I for one will happily wait for it to mature before my main distro switches over...

Pulse used the audio HW in ways previous approaches didn't, and exposed a lot a driver bugs. AFAIK neither JACK, macOS, Windows nor Android use the sound HW in the same way (as in, rewinding and rewriting a buffer that has already been sent to the device), so it wouldn't surprise me if pulse also exposed a lot of HW bugs that the drivers then had to work around.

Ironically, now that these bugs have mostly been fixed, pipewire switches back to not using buffer rewriting. On the positive side, the transition should be a lot smoother than the pulse transition. Or at least, it shouldn't be such a magnet for HW and driver bugs.

[Nocifer]

Isn't Ubuntu still developing their Native Interactive Hearing sound system? I just recently saw a commit in their Bzr repo with full Upstart integration.

Yeah, I have to say this NIH concept sounds very cool. And I've also heard that it will come with full 1st day support for Microsoft's WMF, so Ubuntu on WSL will have even more superb sound capabilities. Many kudos to Ubuntu for advancing the Linux cause.

I have a complete déjà vu feeling with this new framework - sure it seems to improve on the current standard and expectations of users have changed quite a lot over the years; but I for one will happily wait for it to mature before my main distro switches over...

A couple of important differences: one, the guys developing Pipewire are actual audio specialists with actual experience (and achievements) in the field; two, Linux nowadays already has a decent sound server and Pipewire is an iterative improvement of it, while Pulseaudio was the first such system for Linux and as such it had no "shoulders of giants" on which to base itself on; and three, during Pulseaudio's first years apps had to be rewritten before they could properly support it, while now with Pipewire there's Pulseaudio emulation support and thus apps will Just Work™ from the get-go (...that is, when Pipewire is ready).

[TemplarGR]

I have tried many times to use pipewire on Arch, it just does not see any device on my system. Tried every instruction in the wiki, googled for help, nothing. So i don't understand how people can say that they don't need pulseaudio again. It is certainly not ready yet.

[Khrundel]

Tried to use pipewire a couple of months ago. On a first glance it was perfect, but later have found two issues. First, not sure it exists, but twice my peers in a zoom conference was complaining about cracking sound from webcam micro. I seldom use zoom, there was 1 week gap between these calls, so it is unlikely this is coincidence or some one time issue. Second issue is 100% real: when i am seeking in smplayer by holding an arrow key, pulseaudio behaves more or less sane while pipewire produces unpleasant noise.

[caligula]

I remember when plain ALSA was the de-facto way of outputting sounds; when you had a decent driver multiple programs could produce sounds without issues.

...

I have a complete déjà vu feeling with this new framework - sure it seems to improve on the current standard and expectations of users have changed quite a lot over the years; but I for one will happily wait for it to mature before my main distro switches over...

Yea.. well the expectations have grown quite a lot. Some 20 years ago I didn't even use VOIP software. I had SB Live 5.1 with analog stereo speakers. The most demanding use cases were EAX 5.1 sound when playing games, AC3 passthrough (no software mixing at all), and simple stereo in/out with at most two sound sources (mp3 player & internet videos). I had to launch all videos with 3rd party media player since the browser plugins were a bit buggy. Now.. my normal desktop is basically a lightweight DAW with multiple sound cards and other audio interfaces.

[jo-erlend]

If it works so well for Fedora and the like, I wonder why Debian and Ubuntu doesn't use it ?

Some distros are more cutting edge than others. I don't see the major rush for the average Ubuntu user to have PipeWire.

[mppix]

This is quite impressive stuff. The developers seem to be quite on top of it.
I am starting to wonder what they have in store beyond the pulse/jack compatibility layers. Real-time network audio through AVB maybe?

[MadeUpName]

Does anybody know if PipeWire supports battery reporting for bluetooth audio devices?

Yes it does.