Fedora 34 Might Try To Use PipeWire By Default To Replace PulseAudio/JACK

[angrypie]

I think you will need this update on Fedora 33 that is currently in updates testing: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/upda...020-d7bb61dc59

The next build for rawhide has a messag that it fixes the requires for pipewire-Pulseaudio, so if it still doesnt work, then a new build will be required.

I tried it yesterday, still broken. This update fixes an unrelated kwin crash and has nothing to do with replacing Pulseaudio (yet).

[673zz5]

My understanding is that PulseAudio has a good bit of latency. For AV playback that doesn't matter too much as long as the audio and video are synced. The problem is that when dealing with real-time inputs (like from my guitar rig), the latency is excessive. What Jack provides is a lightweight low latency input mechanism so applications like guitar effects frameworks (e.g. guitarix) require the Jack drivers. If PipeWire can handle both the AV and low-latency cases implicitly then it would make things a whole lot cleaner.

[dylanmtaylor]

My understanding is that PulseAudio has a good bit of latency. For AV playback that doesn't matter too much as long as the audio and video are synced. The problem is that when dealing with real-time inputs (like from my guitar rig), the latency is excessive. What Jack provides is a lightweight low latency input mechanism so applications like guitar effects frameworks (e.g. guitarix) require the Jack drivers. If PipeWire can handle both the AV and low-latency cases implicitly then it would make things a whole lot cleaner.

That's part of the idea behind writing it in the first place. Hopefully we see fantastic performance out of it.

[dylanmtaylor]

I tried it yesterday, still broken. This update fixes an unrelated kwin crash and has nothing to do with replacing Pulseaudio (yet).

Still not working, maybe we'll be able to test it in a few days. I'm planning on trying it out on my hardware as soon as I get a chance

[Sonadow]

Nvm, its me an idiot who muted QMMP in application list So no issues.



Yes, I used Bluetooth A2DP with my Sennheizers HD4.50. The only thing I had to add is "-e bluez5" in /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf. Didn't try input, I cannot stand the quality of BT headphones on headset profile, but it is visible in mixer.

As for quality I did not notice any difference between PipeWire and PulseAudio with soxr-hq (maybe PipeWire reads Pulse's config?). About CPU it seems PipeWire eats a bit less CPU but not sure about this - I have powerful processor and comparing between 1% and 1.5% is a bit hard Cannot say much about latency, but I am playing Fallout 4 now and previously with Pulse sound stuttered sometimes, had no problems with Pipe for 2 weeks at least.

In any case it looked to me as a simple drop-in replacement. Why Wayland guys could not do the same?

I could not get my bluetooth headphones with embedded mic working. A2DP profile causes the microphone to disappear, and the embedded microphone is unusable under Headset profile. This is on Debian 10. And audio quality is just dreadful on both profiles.

Gave up and went back to 3.5mm earphones + microphone for web conferencing.

But for all its problems, Pulseaudio has the benefit of not being affected by the X - Wayland transition, and is also unaffected by the move to flatpaks and snaps, unlike graphical resources that require xdg-desktop-portal and xdg-desktop-portal-wlr/gtk/kde.

[angrypie]

After a bit of tinkering I got pipewire-pulseaudio to work on Fedora 33 GNOME. All was well until I tried to unplug/plug my headphones again, which caused the shell to crash. Probably an easy fix but I'll wait until packages have their dependencies fixed, not sure if I could have introduced a bug.

[geearf]

Nvm, its me an idiot who muted QMMP in application list So no issues.



Yes, I used Bluetooth A2DP with my Sennheizers HD4.50. The only thing I had to add is "-e bluez5" in /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf. Didn't try input, I cannot stand the quality of BT headphones on headset profile, but it is visible in mixer.

As for quality I did not notice any difference between PipeWire and PulseAudio with soxr-hq (maybe PipeWire reads Pulse's config?). About CPU it seems PipeWire eats a bit less CPU but not sure about this - I have powerful processor and comparing between 1% and 1.5% is a bit hard Cannot say much about latency, but I am playing Fallout 4 now and previously with Pulse sound stuttered sometimes, had no problems with Pipe for 2 weeks at least.

In any case it looked to me as a simple drop-in replacement. Why Wayland guys could not do the same?

Since headset bluetooth's future in PA is now questionable, I finally switched to PW and yeah so far it does seem to work fine.
I can't find the conf file similar to daemon.conf, is there somewhere with all these options or just not yet?

Thanks!

[finalzone]

I could not get my bluetooth headphones with embedded mic working. A2DP profile causes the microphone to disappear, and the embedded microphone is unusable under Headset profile. This is on Debian 10. And audio quality is just dreadful on both profiles.

Gave up and went back to 3.5mm earphones + microphone for web conferencing.

But for all its problems, Pulseaudio has the benefit of not being affected by the X - Wayland transition, and is also unaffected by the move to flatpaks and snaps, unlike graphical resources that require xdg-desktop-portal and xdg-desktop-portal-wlr/gtk/kde.

It looks like Debian issue in that case. Bluetooth headphone like Galaxy Buds+ is working fine on both Fedora 33 and Rawhide with pipewire 0.3.18.

[trasz]

Is it possible to run PipeWire on macOS, Windows or *BSD?

No idea about macOS or Windows, but of course it does run on FreeBSD: https://www.freshports.org/multimedia/pipewire/