On Tue, Feb 13, 2024 at 01:57:02AM -0500, Steve Litt wrote:
> Haines Brown via Dng said on Mon, 12 Feb 2024 12:28:04 -0500
>
> > Is its
> >replacement with PulseAudo a good idea?
>
> A very bad idea. I call pulseaudio "the land of a thousand mutes". It
> turns a simple "no audio" troubleshoot into a jungle safari searching
> for bones of 2 million year old humans. Friends don't let friends use
> pulseaudio.

Unfortunately, PipeWire on Debian 12 is not (yet) a drop-in replacement
for PulseAudio. A bit of configuration is required as I found out this
morning (the hard way).

Assume you want to configure PipeWire at a system-wide level, but run it
on a per-user basis. I don't know if this is a Best Common Practice,
but it works for me:

# apt install pipewire-audio --install-recommends
# apt purge pulseaudio

# mkdir -p /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d
# vi /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/10-wireplumber.conf
--- SNIP ---
context.exec = [ { path = "/usr/bin/wireplumber" args = "" } ]
--- SNIP ---

# vi /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/20-pipewire-pulse.conf
--- SNIP ---
context.exec = [ { path = "/usr/bin/pipewire" args = "-c
pipewire-pulse.conf" } ]
--- SNIP ---

# vi /etc/xdg/autostart/pipewire.desktop
--- SNIP ---
[Desktop Entry]
Name=PipeWire
Comment=Start PipeWire
Icon=pipewire
Exec=pipewire
Terminal=false
Type=Application
NoDisplay=true
--- SNIP ---

Logout and login again. To test:

$ ps x | grep wireplumber
$ ps x | grep pipewire

Both should be running. Further,

$ wpctl status
$ pactl info

(I now have glitchless audio in Firefox and mplayer for the time being,
but my current goal is to get PipeWire to act as a real-time JACK server
for FL Studio 21 under WINE with ASIO.)

HTH,