PipeWire 0.3.43 Released With Many Fixes

[ehansin]

Low latency software will use the pro low-latency route, games will use the performance non-pro route. But it is pipewire for both.

Is this a response to me? If so, sounds like you are talking PipeWire "native", bypassing any compatibility layers or servers. Anyway thanks.

[pkunk]

Maybe someone can help me out here on understanding, but I think I know that PipeWire has a compatibility layer (aka server or whatever) for PulseAudio and JACK that sits on top of PipeWire itself, is that correct? And let's say going forward, PipeWire is indeed *the* standard, does it also have a native API (or whatever) that can be programmed to/against to avoid any compatibility layers? Also, does all this stuff sit on top of ALSA regardless?

1. Yes pipewire has the native API: https://docs.pipewire.org/page_tutorial4.html
2. For PulseAudio it is more like sitting in parallel than on top. Basically pipewire can also speak pulse. For JACK it implement its own client library which knows how to speak with pipewire.
3. Yes, on top for ALSA for PCI, USB and FireWire devices and on top of bluez for Bluetooth.
4. It uses ALSA plugin to redirect 'default' device to pipewire, so applications will use that. While pipewire daemon will open and manage actual devices.

Edit: SDL, OpenAL, FMOD (popular in proprietary games), wine, mpv are implemented or implementing native support for pipewire.

[ChristianSchaller]

Maybe someone can help me out here on understanding, but I think I know that PipeWire has a compatibility layer (aka server or whatever) for PulseAudio and JACK that sits on top of PipeWire itself, is that correct? And let's say going forward, PipeWire is indeed *the* standard, does it also have a native API (or whatever) that can be programmed to/against to avoid any compatibility layers? Also, does all this stuff sit on top of ALSA regardless?

Just trying to sort out what I do and do not understand how this all works. Thanks!

The way Wim Taymans sees it (the creator of PIpeWire) is that the PulseAudio and JACK APIs are not compatibility layers, they are just different APIs for accessing PIpeWire based on different usecases (consumer vs proAudio).

[ehansin]

pkunk
ChristianSchaller

Thanks both of you! This is helpful. I could go on and on with more questions ( ), but this gives me plenty to think about.

[waxhead]

Since pipewire is now (apparently) the default in Debian Testing suddenly pulseaudio over network does not seem to work anymore. No big deal, but do anybody know if pipewire support network audio or is this a pipe dream (comedy drum fill)?

[Quackdoc]

Since pipewire is now (apparently) the default in Debian Testing suddenly pulseaudio over network does not seem to work anymore. No big deal, but do anybody know if pipewire support network audio or is this a pipe dream (comedy drum fill)?

pipewire doesn't currently support RTP streaming but does support other streaming

[Kemosabe]

I hope there will be a pipewire gui like pavucontrol out eventually. But for now it can still be used with the pipewire-pulse compatibility layer.

[Hojita]

Is there a distro that uses pipewire out of the box for audio? I'd like to try it with my bluetooth setup but I really don't want to muck about my current desktop install.

Plasma installs pipewire, at least when I install the plasma-desktop package on Arch...

[CommunityMember]

Wire goes in conduit.

Only THHN (and equivalent). NM and SE(U) does not require conduit unless there is a concern about physical damage per NFPA 70.

[royce]

It's not hard to install, since it's a drop-in replacement for Pulse. It simply uninstalls the Pulse package and replaces it. You will probably lose some settings/customization in the process, but you'd lose that if installing a new distro anyway. For me it was rather painless. I lost my secondary sampling rate, but found where I could add it to PipeWire rather quickly.
Check whether your distro provides guidance for installing PipeWire and if you're comfortable with what you find, go for it. Much easier than going for a new distro, imho.

Cheers, but as I said I don't want to muck about with my system at all. I just want to try a live cd session of some distro that already has it to check whether my specific hardware works or not.