pulseaudio -> pipewire

[Frank Elsner]

Hi,

I'm a podcaster and therefore I need a functional audio environment.
Currently I use pulseaudio on a Fedora 33 system. Works for me.

Will this also work if I upgrade to Fedora 34?

Is there an equivalent to pavucontrol? I need it to adjust  
the level of my external audio interface?

I'm heavy interested in any experience - especially pitfalls - before
I start the upgrade.

Thanks in advance, 
Frank

[Ed Greshko]

On 26/05/2021 16:15, Frank Elsner via users wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm a podcaster and therefore I need a functional audio environment.
> Currently I use pulseaudio on a Fedora 33 system. Works for me.
>
> Will this also work if I upgrade to Fedora 34?
>
> Is there an equivalent to pavucontrol? I need it to adjust
> the level of my external audio interface?
>
> I'm heavy interested in any experience - especially pitfalls - before
> I start the upgrade.

pavucontrol is compatible with pipewire.  I've not seen any difference in how my upgraded
system performs.

[Tethys]

On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 9:16 AM Frank Elsner via users
 wrote:
> Is there an equivalent to pavucontrol? I need it to adjust
> the level of my external audio interface?
>
> I'm heavy interested in any experience - especially pitfalls - before
> I start the upgrade.

I've had mixed success. pavucontrol continues to work. However,
alsamixer and amixer (both of which I relied on in various places)
don't. The switch to pipewire has not been a pleasant experience for
me.

Tet

[Tethys]

On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 4:19 PM Tethys  wrote:
> I've had mixed success. pavucontrol continues to work. However,
> alsamixer and amixer (both of which I relied on in various places)
> don't. The switch to pipewire has not been a pleasant experience for
> me.

I'd also say that they've significantly heavier weight than pulseaudio
was. Between then, pipewire and pipewire-pulse are consistently using
10% of my available CPU time between them, which is insane.

Tet

[Frank Elsner]

On Thu, 27 May 2021 14:04:28 +0100 Tethys wrote:
> On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 4:19 PM Tethys  wrote:
> > I've had mixed success. pavucontrol continues to work. However,
> > alsamixer and amixer (both of which I relied on in various places)
> > don't. The switch to pipewire has not been a pleasant experience for
> > me.
>
> I'd also say that they've significantly heavier weight than pulseaudio
> was. Between then, pipewire and pipewire-pulse are consistently using
> 10% of my available CPU time between them, which is insane.

That doesn't sound good. Is there a chance and way to stay with pulseaudio?

--Frank

[Kseniya Blashchuk]

I use pulseaudio at the moment with fedora 34, tried pipewire but had much
headache with bluetooth headphones. However I should admit that HSP/HFP
profile started working with pipewire (did not work with pulseaudio at
all). Still it is quite unstable, so I had to switch back to pulseaudio and
use internal laptop microphone with bluetooth headphones.

On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 4:11 PM Frank Elsner via users <
[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 May 2021 14:04:28 +0100 Tethys wrote:
> > On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 4:19 PM Tethys  wrote:
> > > I've had mixed success. pavucontrol continues to work. However,
> > > alsamixer and amixer (both of which I relied on in various places)
> > > don't. The switch to pipewire has not been a pleasant experience for
> > > me.
> >
> > I'd also say that they've significantly heavier weight than pulseaudio
> > was. Between then, pipewire and pipewire-pulse are consistently using
> > 10% of my available CPU time between them, which is insane.
>
> That doesn't sound good. Is there a chance and way to stay with pulseaudio?
>
> --Frank
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[Tom Horsley]

On Thu, 27 May 2021 14:04:28 +0100
Tethys wrote:
> I'd also say that they've significantly heavier weight than pulseaudio
> was. Between then, pipewire and pipewire-pulse are consistently using
> 10% of my available CPU time between them, which is insane.

I just tried playing a youtube video while running top
and the max I saw pipewire hit was 1.7%, it was normally at 1.3%.
I didn't see pipewire-pulse at all (isn't that only needed if
you want a pulse compatibility layer running?)

I don't do any exotic audio usage, but the only difference
I've seen is that it no longer takes audio a second or two
to start working again if I pause a youtube video for a while
then come back later and start it up again. I used to always
miss a second or so with pulse.

[Frank Elsner]

On Thu, 27 May 2021 16:21:24 +0300 Kseniya Blashchuk wrote:
> I use pulseaudio at the moment with fedora 34, tried pipewire but had much
> headache with bluetooth headphones. However I should admit that HSP/HFP
> profile started working with pipewire (did not work with pulseaudio at
> all). Still it is quite unstable, so I had to switch back to pulseaudio and
> use internal laptop microphone with bluetooth headphones.

How did you switch back? 
My update command requires --allowerasing to complete.

--Frank

[Kseniya Blashchuk]

Yes, either pulseaudio or pipewire can be installed, from my history:
  1137 | install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth --allowerasing
          | 2021-05-19 14:33 | E, I           |    2
  1136 | install pulseaudio --allowerasing
           | 2021-05-19 14:32 | E, I           |    3 EE

On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 5:30 PM Frank Elsner 
wrote:
> On Thu, 27 May 2021 16:21:24 +0300 Kseniya Blashchuk wrote:
> > I use pulseaudio at the moment with fedora 34, tried pipewire but had
>
> much
> > headache with bluetooth headphones. However I should admit that HSP/HFP
> > profile started working with pipewire (did not work with pulseaudio at
> > all). Still it is quite unstable, so I had to switch back to pulseaudio
>
> and
> > use internal laptop microphone with bluetooth headphones.
>
> How did you switch back?
> My update command requires --allowerasing to complete.
>
> --Frank

[Matti Pulkkinen]

ke, 2021-05-26 kello 10:15 +0200, Frank Elsner via users kirjoitti:
> Hi,
>
> I'm a podcaster and therefore I need a functional audio environment.
> Currently I use pulseaudio on a Fedora 33 system. Works for me.
>
> Will this also work if I upgrade to Fedora 34?
>
> Is there an equivalent to pavucontrol? I need it to adjust  
> the level of my external audio interface?
>
> I'm heavy interested in any experience - especially pitfalls - before
> I start the upgrade.
>
> Thanks in advance, 
> Frank

I'm sure my use of audio is nowhere near as complex as that of someone
who needs to record a podcast, but I thought I'd throw my two cents in
anyway. After moving from F33 to F34, I've found my own audio
experience to be either the same as before in some parts and improved
in some other parts. I use two different laptops, one with bluetooth
headphones and the other with a USB headset. I also use a desktop
computer with headphones connected through a 3.5 mm plug.

The same:
Listening to music, watching videos, and other basic stuff like that
works exactly the same as before. Using Zoom for work and school works
fine, as it did before. I've found no issues when recording game
footage or screencasts with OBS, with or without a microphone. Over
bluetooth, there is still a slight delay before audio output begins
after it has been paused for a time, but this is probably to do with
some kind of power saving feature somewhere rather than pipewire.

Just like before, I sometimes still get a crackling noise in Steam
games, and to fix that I need to add PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=100 %command%
to the launch options for those games to get the crackling to go away.

The improved:
I don't know if this is to do with pipewire, the kernel, or whatever
manages bluetooth, but I've found that my bluetooth headphones work
better than before. Before, they would sometimes either not play audio
at all, or play it very choppily, if the headphones were connected to
more than one device simultaneously; this is no longer an issue. As an
aside, even just connecting the headphones over bluetooth seems to work
much better now.

I've noticed a clear improvement in the audio experience on my desktop
computer. Previously, sometimes the normal audio output would not
become active at all. It's not even that it wouldn't be selected as the
default, but it just wouldn't even show up as an option in the audio
settings. I would also sometimes get this weird problem where the
output was selected correctly, and the meter was moving when audio was
being output, but nothing could be heard through the headphones. I've
experienced none of this so far with F34.

The different:
I have noticed something that may have broken in the switch from
pulseaudio to pipewire: when I went to share my screen in Zoom the
other week, I noticed there was a bit of text in the bottom of the
window that said something about pulseaudio version this-or-that being
required for sharing desktop audio over Zoom. I can't remember ever
seeing this before, but in any case I've never had a need to share
desktop audio over Zoom, so I haven't taken the time to test whether
that works or not.

[Tim]

On Thu, 2021-05-27 at 10:08 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
> I don't do any exotic audio usage, but the only difference
> I've seen is that it no longer takes audio a second or two
> to start working again if I pause a youtube video for a while
> then come back later and start it up again. I used to always
> miss a second or so with pulse.

This sort of thing always gets me.  We have gigahertz CPUs, and
megahertz other things on board, yet various bits of hardware take
incredibly long (relatively speaking) amounts of time to get started.

[Frank Elsner]

On Wed, 26 May 2021 10:15:39 +0200 Frank Elsner via users wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm a podcaster and therefore I need a functional audio environment.
> Currently I use pulseaudio on a Fedora 33 system. Works for me.
>
> Will this also work if I upgrade to Fedora 34?
>
> Is there an equivalent to pavucontrol? I need it to adjust  
> the level of my external audio interface?
>
> I'm heavy interested in any experience - especially pitfalls - before
> I start the upgrade.

Thanks to everyone who replied. the answers were very helpful. 
So i will dare to upgrade.

--Frank

[Matti Pulkkinen]

to, 2021-05-27 kello 23:43 +0300, Matti Pulkkinen kirjoitti:
> The improved:
> I would also sometimes get this weird problem where the
> output was selected correctly, and the meter was moving when audio
> was
> being output, but nothing could be heard through the headphones. I've
> experienced none of this so far with F34.

It appears I spoke too soon, as I happened to run into this problem
again just now. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[Steve Underwood]

On 26/05/2021 09:15, Frank Elsner via users wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm a podcaster and therefore I need a functional audio environment.
> Currently I use pulseaudio on a Fedora 33 system. Works for me.
>
> Will this also work if I upgrade to Fedora 34?
>
> Is there an equivalent to pavucontrol? I need it to adjust
> the level of my external audio interface?
>
> I'm heavy interested in any experience - especially pitfalls - before
> I start the upgrade.

When I upgraded from F32 to F33 pulseaudio changed from something with a 
few quirks, to something very troublesome. The main issue was I had to 
restart pulseaudio several times after logging in before it would 
actually find my audio devices. I found the cure was to switch to 
pipewire. The main long term quirk I had with pulseaudio was that 
sometimes starting an app, particularly chrome, would make the sound 
distort, and pulseaudio had to be restarted to recover from this. I 
haven't seen this problem since changing to pipewire. pipewire does seem 
to show up in a "top" report as using a bit more CPU. This might be 
because it is mixing in floating point, or because it just hasn't been 
that well optimised so far, but its CPU load is only a few percent.

I have not used the jack side of pipewire. I have no idea how well that 
works.

[George N. White III]

On Sat, 29 May 2021 at 11:00, Steve Underwood  wrote:
> > [...]
>
> When I upgraded from F32 to F33 pulseaudio changed from something with a
> few quirks, to something very troublesome. The main issue was I had to
> restart pulseaudio several times after logging in before it would
> actually find my audio devices. I found the cure was to switch to
> pipewire. The main long term quirk I had with pulseaudio was that
> sometimes starting an app, particularly chrome, would make the sound
> distort, and pulseaudio had to be restarted to recover from this. I
> haven't seen this problem since changing to pipewire. pipewire does seem
> to show up in a "top" report as using a bit more CPU. This might be
> because it is mixing in floating point, or because it just hasn't been
> that well optimised so far, but its CPU load is only a few percent.

You don't mention how capable a CPU you have.  There are tradeoffs.
Modern processors often have "spare" CPU cycles that are used to
advantage, e.g., by measures that reduce memory usage, add
features, etc.   Many people have vastly overpowered CPU's for
their workloads, so developers may be tempted to add features that
would not have made sense a few years ago.

With linux, they who develop software chose tradeoffs.  Most of them
are unlikely to have access to bottom-end hardware for testing  It is
inevitable that some use cases will suffer collateral damage.  This
might include your issues with pulseaudio on F34.   Collateral damage
can occur when drivers are modified to use new capabilities, or when
legacy quirks needed to support older modules are removed when a
new module eliminates a legacy problem.

[Steve Underwood]

On 29/05/2021 15:31, George N. White III wrote:
> On Sat, 29 May 2021 at 11:00, Steve Underwood <[e-mail] 
> > wrote:
> > [...]
> When I upgraded from F32 to F33 pulseaudio changed from something
> with a
> few quirks, to something very troublesome. The main issue was I
> had to
> restart pulseaudio several times after logging in before it would
> actually find my audio devices. I found the cure was to switch to
> pipewire. The main long term quirk I had with pulseaudio was that
> sometimes starting an app, particularly chrome, would make the sound
> distort, and pulseaudio had to be restarted to recover from this. I
> haven't seen this problem since changing to pipewire. pipewire
> does seem
> to show up in a "top" report as using a bit more CPU. This might be
> because it is mixing in floating point, or because it just hasn't
> been
> that well optimised so far, but its CPU load is only a few percent.
>
>
> You don't mention how capable a CPU you have.  There are tradeoffs.
> Modern processors often have "spare" CPU cycles that are used to
> advantage, e.g., by measures that reduce memory usage, add
> features, etc.   Many people have vastly overpowered CPU's for
> their workloads, so developers may be tempted to add features that
> would not have made sense a few years ago.
>
> With linux, they who develop software chose tradeoffs. Most of them
> are unlikely to have access to bottom-end hardware for testing  It is
> inevitable that some use cases will suffer collateral damage.  This
> might include your issues with pulseaudio on F34. Collateral damage
> can occur when drivers are modified to use new capabilities, or when
> legacy quirks needed to support older modules are removed when a
> new module eliminates a legacy problem.
>
> -- 
> George N. White III

I have no issues with the CPU power that pipewire is taking. Someone 
else mentioned that it uses more than pulseaudio, and I concur that this 
is the case. Since its only a few percent of one core, I don't really care.

Steve

[Ian Chapman]

On 26/05/2021 16:15, Frank Elsner via users wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm a podcaster and therefore I need a functional audio environment.
> Currently I use pulseaudio on a Fedora 33 system. Works for me.
>
> Will this also work if I upgrade to Fedora 34?
>
> Is there an equivalent to pavucontrol? I need it to adjust
> the level of my external audio interface?
>
> I'm heavy interested in any experience - especially pitfalls - before
> I start the upgrade.

For me the only issue has been constantly switching to another audio 
output device other than my monitors' audio over displayport when they 
go into power saving or sometimes on boot.