Bug 28418 - Pipewire will replace pulseaudio
Summary: Pipewire will replace pulseaudio
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: RPM Packages (show other bugs)
Version: Cauldron
Hardware: All Linux
Priority: Normal normal
Target Milestone: Mageia 9
Assignee: Thierry Vignaud
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2021-02-23 16:11 CET by Aurelien Oudelet
Modified: 2023-10-23 01:22 CEST (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Source RPM: pipewire-0.3.25-1.mga9.src.rpm
CVE:
Status comment: For future version, beware upstream could enforce audio server facilities and this must replace PulseAudio


Attachments

Description Aurelien Oudelet 2021-02-23 16:11:14 CET
Mageia 8 x86_64, Plasma desktop.

Pipewire is running as an user systemd session alongside pulseaudio. This is not supported UPSTREAM.

It seems to be pulled by flatpak rpms. It also tried to be loaded by sddm user.
Also, it makes some error at each boot time, see bug 28043.


But as side effect, it does not seem to be harmful with some basic test.
Will add some info later.
Comment 1 Aurelien Oudelet 2021-02-23 16:45:08 CET
$ urpmq --whatrequires-recursive pipewire
gnome-remote-desktop
gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons
pipewire
pipewire-doc
pipewire-utils
xdg-desktop-portal
xdg-desktop-portal-devel
xdg-desktop-portal-gtk
xdg-desktop-portal-kde

So, yes, as long as we need xdg-desktop-portal, we need pipewire.
Aurelien Oudelet 2021-02-23 18:12:23 CET

Source RPM: (none) => pipewire-0.3.19-1.mga8.src.rpm

Comment 2 Lewis Smith 2021-02-23 21:34:55 CET
> Pipewire is running as an user systemd session alongside pulseaudio.
> This is not supported UPSTREAM.
Not having Pulseaudio running looks rather drastic. Does Pipewire replace it?

I do not think this is related to Flatpack - unless that actually causes pipewire to run. As you say, xdg-desktop-portal requires (but needs?) pipewire:
 $ urpmq --requires-recursive xdg-desktop-portal | grep pipe
 lib64jack0|pipewire-jack-audio-connection-kit
 lib64pipewire0.3_0
 pipewire
and that looks a rather basic package. I have it, but not Flatpack. And without asking for it: pipewire-0.3.19-1.mga8

Here, pulseaudio is running; but no sign of pipewire with 'ps' or systemctl:
 https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28043#c3
nor is it present in MCC 'system services'.

> as side effect, it does not seem to be harmful with some basic test
Is this bug possibly just a duplicate of bug 28043 ?

CC: (none) => lewyssmith

Comment 3 David Walser 2021-02-24 18:14:17 CET
Yeah it needs to be OK for both to be *installed* together.  I don't know much about pipewire, but I heard it's supposed to be a replacement for pulseaudio.

Maybe draksound needs to be enhanced to let you choose which of pulse, pipe, or neither actually runs.
Comment 4 Lewis Smith 2021-02-24 19:33:49 CET
> Is this bug possibly just a duplicate of bug 28043 ?
No. I have been a-hunting:

it fixes many problems that PulseAudio had experienced, including its high CPU usage, bluetooth connection issues, and its JACK backend issues.

This requires xdg-desktop-portal and one of its backends to be installed. The available backends are:
xdg-desktop-portal-gtk for GNOME.
xdg-desktop-portal-kde for KDE.

Audio
PipeWire can be used as an audio server, similar to PulseAudio and JACK. It aims to replace both PulseAudio and JACK, by providing a PulseAudio-compatible server implementation and ABI-compatible libraries for JACK clients

PulseAudio clients
Install pipewire-pulse. Normally, no further action is needed, as the user service pipewire-pulse.socket should be enabled automatically by the package. If PipeWire does not work correctly on system startup, validate that the user services pipewire-pulse.service and pipewire.service are up and running.

To check if the replacement is working, run the following command and see the output:
 $ pactl info
 ...
 Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 0.3.16)
[Server Name: pulseaudio here]

We offer all the bits (+  a couple of libraries):
pipewire
pipewire-alsa
pipewire-doc
pipewire-jack-audio-connection-kit
pipewire-libjack
pipewire-plugin-jack
pipewire-pulseaudio
pipewire-utils
--------------
So it seems that it can be installed alongside pulseaudio; but (implied) that the two cannot/should not run together. If using it, one should not need pulseaudio. Comfortingly, the only thing directly requiring pulseaudio is 'pavucontrol', so it might be easier to substitute with pipewire than one might fear.

@ Aurélien : is this still a bug ?

This looks a new thing warranting a wiki page.
Comment 5 Aurelien Oudelet 2021-02-24 19:45:16 CET
$ pactl info
Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 34
Server Protocol Version: 34
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 33
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: aurelien
Host Name: mageia.local
Server Name: pulseaudio       <===== NOTE HERE
Server Version: 14.2.0-2.mga8
Default Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo
Default Source: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo.monitor
Cookie: 035f:6a9c

So, normally PipeWire is a PulseAudio replacement. Fedora 34 is supposed to switch into it.

PipeWire (0.3) with support for audio use cases should be available in most distributions. Most distributions however will not have enabled the audio parts by default.

As far as I see, the current situation is that PipeWire is not harmful with PulseAudio also running on Mageia 8. But, we should monitor for next updates to flatpak and PipeWire development before it will back in our face if upstream press the Red button to ditch PulseAudio.

This can be raised to a wiki page with a warning in future.
Mageia 9 could switch into it.

Assigning to packager.

Target Milestone: Mageia 8 => Mageia 9
Assignee: bugsquad => thierry.vignaud
Status comment: (none) => For future version, beware upstream could enforce audio server facilities and this must replace PulseAudio

Comment 6 Lewis Smith 2021-02-24 21:09:26 CET
Thanks.

CC: lewyssmith => (none)

Comment 7 Barry Jackson 2021-03-15 01:22:43 CET
(In reply to Lewis Smith from comment #4)

> PulseAudio clients
> Install pipewire-pulse. Normally, no further action is needed, as the user.....

In Mga8 I find:
No package named pipewire-pulse

However there is pipewire-pulseaudio

I assume this is the correct package, to avoid confusion?

CC: (none) => zen25000

Curtis Hildebrand 2021-03-17 07:05:18 CET

CC: (none) => curtis_mageia

Comment 8 Thierry Vignaud 2021-03-17 16:08:21 CET
In Mageia 9, pipewire will likely replace pulseaudio
Comment 9 Thomas Backlund 2021-03-17 17:01:25 CET
(In reply to Thierry Vignaud from comment #8)
> In Mageia 9, pipewire will likely replace pulseaudio

Why ?
Comment 10 Barry Jackson 2021-03-17 23:46:41 CET
Pulseeffects upstream have stopped supporting PA and new versions will now only support pipewire.

If we were to support both pipewire and pulseaudio then we would have to have two versions of pulseeffects.

https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/pulseeffects-moved-to-pipewire/11513

Looks like a can of worms when pulseaudio was finally working so well. :\
Comment 11 Dave Hodgins 2021-03-18 01:31:43 CET
$ urpmq --whatrequires pulseeffects
pulseeffects

While losing the equalizer is annoying, what other benefits does pipewire bring
over pulseaudio? Before this bug report I wasn't even aware of pulseeffects.

CC: (none) => davidwhodgins

Comment 12 Aurelien Oudelet 2021-05-19 11:40:18 CEST
(In reply to Thomas Backlund from comment #9)
> (In reply to Thierry Vignaud from comment #8)
> > In Mageia 9, pipewire will likely replace pulseaudio
> 
> Why ?

Because upstream pulseaudio developers are now helping devel pipewire.
Note that Fedora 34 is now pipewire-only, with a pulseaudio compat layer.

This is a pity something is working great that is replaced by an other service which is rapidly evolving with quick releases... but like a beta stuff...

If we make the switch, we should beware against packages are built.

Summary: Pipewire should not installed alongside pulseaudio => Pipewire will replace pulseaudio
Source RPM: pipewire-0.3.19-1.mga8.src.rpm => pipewire-0.3.25-1.mga9.src.rpm

Comment 13 Keith Bowes 2022-02-18 22:25:44 CET
(In reply to Thomas Backlund from comment #9)
> (In reply to Thierry Vignaud from comment #8)
> > In Mageia 9, pipewire will likely replace pulseaudio
> 
> Why ?

Why not?  I've considered switching manually, because PulseAudio has traditionally had the tendency to misbehave (I even looked into JACK, only to discover that it's an even bigger pain than PulseAudio), but the PipeWire documentation was sparse.  It'll be great if PipeWire is the distro's standard audio server and I don't have to risk breaking my system trying to get it done (that is, whenever Mageia 9 comes about; there's not even a roadmap or tracking bug yet).

CC: (none) => zooplah

Comment 14 Barry Jackson 2022-02-20 01:50:06 CET
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28933(In reply to Keith Bowes from comment #13)
> (In reply to Thomas Backlund from comment #9)
> > (In reply to Thierry Vignaud from comment #8)
> > > In Mageia 9, pipewire will likely replace pulseaudio
> > 
> > Why ?
> 
> Why not?

Well these for starters:
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28933
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29286
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29929
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28532
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28043

Considering that few users will have even tried to use pipewire, then I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg.
Things like pulseaudio server streaming from the LAN just don't continue to work when a switch is made from PA to pipewire (in Mga8). There is no equivalent to paprefs for pipewire that I have seen.
Also this is all very confusing and the more I read the more confusing it gets.
PA was a PITA for several years until it finally settled down but it is now reliable and works out of the box.
I feel that switching to pipewire for Mga9 will take us back to the early days of PA again.
I wanted to test pipewire in cauldron, but it has been impossible to install (#29286), so no sound packages that I maintain have been tested at all in cauldron with pipewire yet.

My 2 cents
Comment 15 Guillaume Bedot 2022-11-07 18:24:27 CET
(In reply to Thierry Vignaud from comment #8)
> In Mageia 9, pipewire will likely replace pulseaudio

yes please !

In the current situation, I experience issues with pipewire and pulseaudio installed, that are cured replacing pulseaudio with pipewire-pulseaudio (i'm in the process of creating the bug report).

CC: (none) => guillaume.bedot

Comment 16 Guillaume Bedot 2022-11-07 19:27:38 CET
done with reporting https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31087
Florian Hubold 2023-10-23 01:22:08 CEST

CC: (none) => doktor5000


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