Debian 12 Switches To PipeWire & WirePlumber By Default With The GNOME Desktop

[redgreen925]

Using PipeWire with PipeWire Mdeia Session and later PipeWire with WirePlumber with Debian and KDE Plasma for many many moons and all my use-cases are perfectly implemented (audio, video, several different BlueTooth devices, automatic switching, volume memory, routing, hardware and software compatabiliy).

Thus I wonder why it's not a Debian-default but just a Gnome-default.
It this some kind of test-balloon to not damage Plasma experience in case it goes wrong with just Gnome?
From my side I can say it's ready for full deployment.

Only thing that works for me if I use the garbage PulseAudio I get a hard freeze of my machine within minutes of playing anything with audio in it. This happened from the beginning when I switched back to Linux from macOS at Christmas last year after yet another security update to their OS crippled my machine like the previous did, one damn sneaky way to force an upgrade of the OS. With the Pipewire it has worked flawlessly since the first time I installed it on both the Gnome and the KDE I later switched to after getting tired of all the breaking changes in the Gnome. KDE just works and continues to work no matter the underlying changes, I have upgraded the frameworks, plasma and qt versions on this install without problems.

[Charlie68]

It is not clear why the switch to pipewire is only about Gnome.
I use Tumbleweed KDE, where pipewire is the default regardless of the DE and it works great.
For users who are having problems with pipewire, it is still possible to switch to Pulse quite easily anyway.
There is no perfect software, there is a lot of different hardware out there and it can happen that certain hardware for some reason does not work well with pipewire, but the opposite also happens, however today pipewire is a great improvement for most users. , this is why all distributions are now setting it by default.
But the question remains ... why only in Gnome?

[redgreen925]

Calling any desktop or window manager on Debian "default" is a bit odd, but I guess you are the one that's smashing my inference that no one would bother to run Gnome on Debian. More power to you. Have an upvote.

If you choose to install the desktop environment task the default installed is the Gnome. You have to go out of your way to get others this is a plain simple fact of the install. Who knows how many actually run it you could look up the popularity-contest stats to see what the usage is, seems to a few options to check.

https://popcon.debian.org/

[reba]

Using PipeWire with PipeWire Mdeia Session and later PipeWire with WirePlumber with Debian and KDE Plasma for many many moons and all my use-cases are perfectly implemented (audio, video, several different BlueTooth devices, automatic switching, volume memory, routing, hardware and software compatabiliy).

Thus I wonder why it's not a Debian-default but just a Gnome-default.
It this some kind of test-balloon to not damage Plasma experience in case it goes wrong with just Gnome?
From my side I can say it's ready for full deployment.

[andyprough]

Jeez.. is this really the best you could come up with?
Gnome and developments on Gnome advance the Linux desktop step by step to the benefit of all. This is just the latest example.
Most Debian users that I know (including myself) uses the "default" Gnome (the most tested and therefore stable DE).
But also, this will switch also all Debian/Gnome derivatives to pipewire.

Calling any desktop or window manager on Debian "default" is a bit odd, but I guess you are the one that's smashing my inference that no one would bother to run Gnome on Debian. More power to you. Have an upvote.

[redgreen925]

This is great!
But why only with Gnome?
I neveer saw a problem running PipeWire with KDE Plasma.

Because they care so much for their users they have only offered the my way or the highway options to them. KDE is that evil open source desktop that has the audacity to be related to a for profit company, which the Gnome extremists have a decades long hate on for, this carries over into Debian. Same reason they have General Resolution vote now on un-crippling their installer to use the abomination of non-free software (firmware really) to allow an out of the box experience that will just work. Instead of my last experience where the installer works to install but then no video once installed due to missing evil firmware, without even a warning you will need it, real care for the user there.

[tildearrow]

Typo:

Debian and Ubuntu join the likes of Fedora Workstation, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Pop!_OS, and many other Linux distributions already using PipeWire and WirePlubmer by default on the desktop as a modern and robust alternative to the likes of PulseAudio and JACK.

[Danny3]

This is great!
But why only with Gnome?
I neveer saw a problem running PipeWire with KDE Plasma.

[muncrief]

I just switched back to Arch Linux as my primary desktop after about a year and a half of having to run Windows 10. The Windows switch was necessary because former bandmates were insistent we use Studio One instead of Reaper, and I couldn't get my KVM Windows 10 VM to run Studio One without audio glitches.

Now that I'm back I tried to see if I could integrate PipeWire with Cadence but gave up after a day because it wasn't working, and after numerous internet searches it appears PipeWire is not recommended for professional audio, which I don't understand. In any case it looks like, at least for now, PipeWire is primarily a Gnome thing, and since I will never run Windows-like desktops under Linux, and choose the far more simple and efficient XFCE, it looks like PipeWire is a long way off in the future for me.

I hope I'm wrong though, because for years PipeWire has been hyped as the universal low latency solution for all the problems that continue to hinder and complicate Linux audio.

[darkdragon-001]

Let's hope that issues like [1] get fixed soon... I really want to 100% switch to PipeWire.

[1]: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipew...r/-/issues/267

If I understand correctly such issues like rules for selecting input/output devices based on types and other events is what Wireplumber and not Pipewire is responsible for...