Re: Switch default from PulseAudio to PipeWire (and WirePlumber) for audio
On September 29, 2022 12:26:03 PM UTC, Emanuele Rocca <ema@debian.org> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>On 2022-09-08 05:58, Dylan Aïssi wrote:
>> I have been asked several times regarding when Debian will switch its default
>> sound server from PulseAudio to PipeWire without having an official answer.
>> Thus, I suppose it's the right time to start a discussion about that.
>
>PipeWire seems to be working just fine as a drop-in replacement for me
>on sid, so personally I don't have any objections to the sound server
>switch.
>
>My concern is about the availability of clients for controlling things
>like volume and which output device to use. In an effort to try and
>reducing the variety of sound-related stuff installed on my machines
>[1], I've removed everything vaguely resembling "pulseaudio", except for
>what would have caused the removal of tons of stuff. I am now left with:
>
>libpulse-mainloop-glib0:amd64
>libpulse0:amd64
>pipewire-pulse
>
>Sound still works fine, but how to do things like changing volume,
>toggling mute, choosing between HDMI and headphones, ...? I understand
>that one can still use pavucontrol, but that would essentially mean
>bringing back parts of pulseaudio (at least libpulsedsp, pavucontrol,
>and pulseaudio-utils).
>
>If it's true that pavucontrol (or similar) is still required, I think it
>would be a bit confusing to make the switch from pulseaudio to pipewire
>and still have functional dependencies on pulseaudio around.
You don't need to remove pulseaudio client stuff. It will work fine with pipewire (I do use pavucontrol for instance, despite having switched a while ago).
Only the pulseaudio daemon needs to be at least stopped.
Cheers,
--
nodens
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