ALT Linux - How to replace PulseAudio with PipeWire

ALT Linux uses PulseAudio as its default sound server but, switching to PipeWire is not that difficult. ALT Linux English wiki doesn’t have any documentation on this subject as of writing this article, so I decided to post this little how-to with the hope that someone will find it useful.

First we need to install PipeWire and a few useful helper tools. It’s as easy as running the following in the terminal emulator of your choice,

sudo apt-get install pipewire pipewire-utils wireplumber easyeffects

Next, it’s time to disable PulseAudio related services. Run the following commands as regular user, I repeat, as a regular user and not as root or with sudo.

systemctl --user disable --now pulseaudio{,.socket,-x11}
systemctl --user mask pulseaudio{,.socket,-x11}

Finally, it’s time to enable PipeWire related services & WirePlumber,

systemctl --user enable --now pipewire{,-pulse}{,.socket} wireplumber

A logout/login should be good enough, but if possible a reboot is highly recommended.

To verify that whether PipeWire is up & running, run the following command,

pactl info | grep 'Server Name' | cut -d " " -f 3-

If everything is working as it should, the term PipeWire should appear in the output, followed by the version number. Something like the following,

PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.2.6)

Voilà! We have successfully switched to PipeWire as the default sound server. And, oh by the way, don’t forget to play around with EasyEffects.

The word Audio written on a neon sign

Image courtesy Thomas Hawk

 Date: November 14, 2024
 Tags:  how-to linux
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