KVR Audio

audiojunkie · Post by **audiojunkie** » Fri Oct 06, 2023 5:28 pm

PipeWire 1.0 RC Available With Jackdbus By Default, Improved IRQ-Based Scheduling

https://www.phoronix.com/news/PipeWire-1.0-RC

Written by Michael Larabel in PipeWire on 6 October 2023 at 06:29 AM EDT. 22 Comments
PIPEWIRE PipeWire 0.3.81 was released today for what's being treated as the PipeWire 1.0 release candidate ahead of its stable release still comimg up this calendar year.

PipeWire 1.0 is expected this year with an IRQ-based ALSA driver for professional audio being the last area that Red Hat engineers wanted to wrap up before the PipeWire 1.0 milestone. PipeWire 0.3.81 was released a few minutes ago with what's advertised as being the PipeWire 1.0 release candidate while being API/ABI compatible with prior 0.3.x releases.

This new PipeWire release has Jackdbus support enabled by default, IRQ-based scheduling in ALSA was improved and enabled by default for the Pro-Audio profile, improved WebRTC audio processing, other pro-audio improvements, and many bug fixes and other enhancements.

With the completed work on IRQ-based scheduling in ALSA, PipeWire is now able to match the JACK audio server and have equal latency to PipeWire with the professional audio profile.
PipeWire logo

Downloads and more details on the PipeWire 0.8.31 release via the FreeDesktop.org GitLab.

audiojunkie · Post by **audiojunkie** » Fri Oct 06, 2023 5:48 pm

According to what I read, you have to be switched to the “Pro-Audio Profile” in order to use the IRQ-based scheduling. See details below:

“…IRQ based scheduling in ALSA was improved and enabled by default for Pro-Audio profile. It will also link the pcms together to get lower latency. This now matches what JACK does and gives equal latency for Pro-Audio profiles.”

uOpt · Post by **uOpt** » Fri Oct 06, 2023 10:50 pm

Well, worth a try. It is default in Ubuntu Studio now, and I have one of those installations. Cover me, I'm going in.

FrettedSynth · Post by **FrettedSynth** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:22 am

Does Pipewie run on top of alsa just like jack? If so I guess just running straight alsa will give simular latencies. Just looses the ability to route applications to each other on a single card. Or is Pipewire something different?

audiojunkie · Post by **audiojunkie** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 3:05 am

PulseAudio and Jack were both separate servers that ran on top of ALSA and allowed multiple apps to communicate (and be heard) simultaneously. There were a lot of problems with getting the two servers to work together on one system, because they weren’t designed to share ALSA. It was manageable, but not ideal. Pipewire is a single server that replaces both PulseAudio and JACK, while maintaining compatibility for Pipewire apps, PulseAudio apps, JACK apps, and even ALSA apps. It is a next generation, grand unifier server that is meant to easily and seamlessly do it all with no problems or conflicts.

It has been adopted by the most popular distros even before it was completely developed. It is meant to be very easy to configure, and require very little OS tuning configuration. These latest versions are indicating that Pipewire is basically feature complete now, and once version 1.0 is released, it should be no longer considered to be in a beta state, but mature and ready for widespread use.

Think of it as making Linux as equivalent in ease of use for audio, as Windows and MacOs.

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 10:30 am

If it effectively kills off JACK development, then the latent JACK on Windows support looks likely to wither and die, I'd say - which would be a shame, as it's pretty useful in many situations where you need low latency flexible routing.

fedexnman · Post by **fedexnman** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 11:00 am

Yeah JACK is like REwire on steroids , maybe they make it work with Pipewire someway .

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 12:55 pm

Well, both PulseAudio and JACK are available for Windows. I guess if PipeWire could get an ASIO backend in place of ALSA, it would cover both usages. In fact, I'd not be wanting to call PipeWire "feature complete" until it was available for Windows, like PulseAudio and JACK already are. Otherwise it's a step backwards, isn't it?

dellboy · Post by **dellboy** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:08 pm

audiojunkie wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 3:05 am
Think of it as making Linux as equivalent in ease of use for audio, as Windows and MacOs.

I was hoping you would say that Linux audio out of the box is now superior to Windows audio?

MacOs audio is already better than Windows audio, as it has built in multi-client support.

uOpt · Post by **uOpt** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:10 pm

Speaking of macOS, does Pipewire run on it? I miss jack API functionality on my Mac.

audiojunkie · Post by **audiojunkie** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:20 pm

dellboy wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:08 pm
audiojunkie wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 3:05 am
Think of it as making Linux as equivalent in ease of use for audio, as Windows and MacOs.
I was hoping you would say that Linux audio out of the box is now superior to Windows audio?

MacOs audio is already better than Windows audio, as it has built in multi-client support.

I was referring solely to the fact that, for a beginner, it is as easy to use as Windows and Mac is. But think about it—with Wireplumber and other tools, Linux has complete, infinite control over routing between each and every audio app—far beyond the routing capabilities of either Windows or Mac. In that sense, Pipewire is far superior.

uOpt · Post by **uOpt** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:23 pm

audiojunkie wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:20 pm
dellboy wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:08 pm
audiojunkie wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 3:05 am
Think of it as making Linux as equivalent in ease of use for audio, as Windows and MacOs.
I was hoping you would say that Linux audio out of the box is now superior to Windows audio?

MacOs audio is already better than Windows audio, as it has built in multi-client support.
I was referring solely to the fact that, for a beginner, it is as easy to use as Windows and Mac is. But think about it—with Wireplumber and other tools, Linux has complete, infinite control over routing between each and every audio app—far beyond the routing capabilities of either Windows or Mac. In that sense, Pipewire is far superior.

So was/is jackd. I know very well and always curse non-Linux OSes for lack of it. If I want to route everything through jamin I should be able to with a couple of clicks.

dellboy · Post by **dellboy** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 3:22 pm

audiojunkie wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:20 pm
dellboy wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 1:08 pm
audiojunkie wrote: Sat Oct 07, 2023 3:05 am
Think of it as making Linux as equivalent in ease of use for audio, as Windows and MacOs.
I was hoping you would say that Linux audio out of the box is now superior to Windows audio?

MacOs audio is already better than Windows audio, as it has built in multi-client support.
I was referring solely to the fact that, for a beginner, it is as easy to use as Windows and Mac is. But think about it—with Wireplumber and other tools, Linux has complete, infinite control over routing between each and every audio app—far beyond the routing capabilities of either Windows or Mac. In that sense, Pipewire is far superior.

I should point out that I am still on Windows, but I have the occasional trip into Linux land to see what's going on. It appears to me that Linux audio is superior because it is class compliant. In Windows I have to hunt around for drivers to make my USB audio work with low latency, in Linux it just works straight out of the box with lower latencies than I can get in Windows.

fedexnman · Post by **fedexnman** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 4:26 pm

Basically the drivers are baked into the Linux kernel .

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 10:51 pm

audiojunkie wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2023 5:28 pm PipeWire 1.0 RC Available With Jackdbus By Default, Improved IRQ-Based Scheduling

https://www.phoronix.com/news/PipeWire-1.0-RC

Thanks for the reliable un-biased news service

I hope that pipewire simplifies the linux audio experience, while improving it's performance specs. My main user concern is having a connections gui option that doesn't use beziers, and doesn't scatter the items to be connected like a cyber F5 tornado

I need basic horizontal and vertical connections, constrained to the visual boundaries of the panel. Qjackctl offers this, and I hope Rui's pipewire gui will follow suit.
Cheers

Linux’s Pipewire 1.0 is ready for testing!!!