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kapqa

Member

Registered: 2019-01-02

Posts: 363  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

@RedGreen925 tried also this script, but then it would not have any audio at all.

at first i was bit bothered since i did not have any controls in the task bar, only pavucontrol seemed fnction in the menu (next to alsamixer ofcourse);
but today strangely the audio switching applet is back in the taskbar for XFCE4; don't know if i installed something extra, probably, but glad it now function;
will report after attempted to use alsa only; for the moment the pipewire seems already enhancement.

RedGreen925

Member

Registered: 2024-12-07

Posts: 58  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

@kapqa Yeah computers can be damn strange at times, good to read it now works for you.

kapqa

Member

Registered: 2019-01-02

Posts: 363  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

@kapqa Yeah computers can be damn strange at times, good to read it now works for you.

yep it worked for some days only, today yesterday i had to switch to the your linked .xsessionrc

# Added when  startx to start pipewire on login to desktop
# https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=5867

# kill any existing pipewire instance to restore sound
pkill -u "$USER" -fx /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse 1>/dev/null 2>&1
pkill -u "$USER" -fx /usr/bin/wireplumber 1>/dev/null 2>&1
pkill -u "$USER" -fx /usr/bin/pipewire 1>/dev/null 2>&1

exec /usr/bin/pipewire &

# wait for pipewire to start before attempting to start related daemons
while [ "$(pgrep -f /usr/bin/pipewire)" = "" ] ; do
   sleep 1
done

exec /usr/bin/wireplumber &

exec /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse &

don't know what triggered the change, got a knew kernel probably, and the simpler .xsessionrc would produce a dummy output.

kapqa

Member

Registered: 2019-01-02

Posts: 363  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

now i have this older laptop which functioned beautifully with debian wheezy and alsa-only;

since switched to devuan (not really a choicethere)
had several other experience

but now had on this "reference" laptop switched on daedalus (and since there to pipewire) and now excalibur to pipewire/wireplumber
but sound was amiss and tried several configuration from your suggestion and it was just hit&miss and would somehow not function properly.

now maybe i have set it wrong, but since removed the configuration files like .xsessionrc or 98-pipewire or so;
also removed pulseaudio and pipewire/wireplumber packages.

isuee is that sound is very low, even with vlc 200% it is probably 1/4 of original strength, and all relevant faderin amixer is set 100%.

there is some error on boot with alsa which i will hand overlater.

what could be error?

there is probably one package left from pulseaudio?

since i removed only "pulseaudio", there is another libpulse0?
is this also needed for removal?
thanks.

https://ibb.co/fdnJV9D
https://ibb.co/9YrKMCX
https://ibb.co/bvv48hw
https://ibb.co/m6Ch6ZH

igorzwx

Member

Registered: 2024-05-06

Posts: 113  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

isuee is that sound is very low, even with vlc 200% it is probably 1/4 of original strength, and all relevant faderin amixer is set 100%.

It is not an issue, it is a feature of ALSA.
With normal loudness, you may hear noise produced by the ALSA resampler.
If you do not like this feature, you may compile and install fftrate ALSA plugin (and configure it).

since i removed only "pulseaudio", there is another libpulse0?
is this also needed for removal?
thanks.

Have you read my manual?
It was posted above.
See: _https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=53969#p53969

kapqa

Member

Registered: 2019-01-02

Posts: 363  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

It is not an issue, it is a feature of ALSA.
With normal loudness, you may hear noise produced by the ALSA resampler.
If you do not like this feature, you may compile and install fftrate ALSA plugin (and configure it).

no , dont know about that,
but this certainly is not normal on thsi part here, cant be.

linux already has "volume" issue, and with alsa-only on this T60 with wheezy was getting "good" audio;
interestingly, when i re-installed later on again, the same sound was no longer achievable;
so either i suffer delusions, or the alsa was changed in the process or somehow, and it did no longer sound that clear.

either way, i experienced what the laptop is capable of in linux; so might aswell check back in time with debian wheezy;
this feature "low volume" is not seeked since have a bit of hearing condition to put it bluntly prefer a good volume , but certainly cannot bear distortions.

thanks for the posting, will check your manual asap.

EDIT:

it seems fixed now, maybe this command shared here fixed it

sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils force-reload

getting error but now alsa is back with "proper""volume"

Shutting down ALSA...done.
Setting up ALSA...warning: 'alsactl -E HOME=/run/alsa -E XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/alsa/runtime restore' failed with error message 'alsa-lib main.c:1554:(snd_use_case_mgr_open) error: failed to import hw:29 use case configuration -2'...done.

the laptop has 2 entry "0:HDA Intel" "29:ThinkPad Console Audio Control" maybe before the re-load the number 29 was being used?
thanks alot!

Last edited by kapqa (2025-01-28 15:09:11)

stopAI

Member

Registered: 2023-04-04

Posts: 196  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

I don't know why everyone is attacking pipewire...personally it works for me without any problems. For auto starting pipewire, you can even not use any autostart scripts, but just use the DE autostart mechanism...works very well.

igorzwx

Member

Registered: 2024-05-06

Posts: 113  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

no , dont know about that

Perhaps, you do not want to know.
It is a very old problem.

fftrate ALSA plugin was created in 2009.

The story of "system wide equalizer" also began in 2009.
For example:
HOWTO systemwide eq with alsaequal
_https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=47899

Today "alsaequal" is easy to install:

_https://askubuntu.com/a/951207

Installation

sudo apt install libasound2-plugin-equal 

Start

alsamixer -D equal
amixer -D equal

To change to the equalizer in the running program, press F6, choose enter device name... and enter “equal”.

Semi-deaf Linux users do need a sort of "equalizer" to "enhance sound", especially high frequencies.

$ apt info libasound2-plugin-equal 
Package: libasound2-plugin-equal
Version: 0.6-8
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Source: alsaequal
Maintainer: Debian Multimedia Maintainers <debian-multimedia@lists.debian.org>
Installed-Size: 72.7 kB
Depends: caps (>= 0.9.11), libasound2 (>= 1.0.16), libc6 (>= 2.14)
Homepage: http://www.thedigitalmachine.net/alsaequal.html
Tag: role::shared-lib
Download-Size: 14.9 kB
APT-Sources: http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus/main amd64 Packages
Description: equalizer plugin for ALSA
 Alsaequal is a real-time adjustable equalizer plugin for ALSA. It can
 be adjusted using an ALSA compatible mixer, like alsamixergui or
 alsamixer.
 .
 Alsaequal uses the Eq CAPS LADSPA Plugin for audio processing, actually
 alsaequal is a generic LADSPA plugin interface with real-time access to
 the LADSPA controls (the LADSPA plugin included with alsa doesn't allow
 for real-time controls) but it was developed for and only tested with
 Eq CAPS LADSPA plugin.

getting error but now alsa is back with "proper""volume"

Shutting down ALSA...done.
Setting up ALSA...warning: 'alsactl -E HOME=/run/alsa -E XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/alsa/runtime restore' failed with error message 'alsa-lib main.c:1554:(snd_use_case_mgr_open) error: failed to import hw:29 use case configuration -2'...done.

You may try a workaround from stackoverflow
ALSA: failed to import hw:0 use case configuration -2
_https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76333959/alsa-failed-to-import-hw0-use-case-configuration-2

$ man alsactl | grep ucm
       -D, --ucm-defaults
       -U, --no-ucm 

$ whereis alsactl
alsactl: /usr/sbin/alsactl /usr/share/man/man1/alsactl.1.gz

$ /usr/sbin/alsactl -h

$ sudo /usr/sbin/alsactl -d restore
/usr/sbin/alsactl: init_ucm:48: ucm open '-hw:0': -6
...

See also:
Alsa UCM
_https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Alsa_UCM

Do you have the ucm.conf file?
It should be here:

/usr/share/alsa/ucm2/ucm.conf

EDIT:

_https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Alsa_UCM
If an UCM configuration is present for a card then pulseaudio will ignore the built-in profiles and generate a profile based on the UCM files.

...
1. Disable PulseAudio or PipeWire so ALSA UCM is not active at all.

This may mean, perhaps, that you do not need ALSA UCM, if you are not using PulseAudio and PipeWire.

Therefore, the workaround from stackoverflow may fix the problem.

sudo /usr/sbin/alsactl --debug restore

sudo /usr/sbin/alsactl --debug --no-ucm restore 

Or you can simply ignore the "error" message, which is, in fact, just "warning", not "error".

EDIT:

If I understood you correctly, your ALSA was almost silent.
The "force-reload" of ALSA seemed to fix the problem.

Since ALSA UCM is not needed, you may simply ignore the "warning" message, and see how it works.

NOTE: OSS4 is much more louder than ALSA with the same sound card.
The fftrate ALSA plugin makes ALSA louder, but not as loud as OSS4.
Most important, the fftrate improves the sound quality of ALSA, although, of course, I like more the sound of OSS4.
If you are content with the sound quality of ALSA, you may use it as is.
But if you need to configure a software mixer for ALSA (e.g., for video conferencing), it might be a difficult task (without the fftrate plugin).
See, for example:
[Arch Linux forum]: [SOLVED] ALSA and dmix (software mixing)
_https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=275656

Last edited by igorzwx (2025-01-29 00:39:04)

kapqa

Member

Registered: 2019-01-02

Posts: 363  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

EDIT:

If I understood you correctly, your ALSA was almost silent.
The "force-reload" of ALSA seemed to fix the problem.

thanks for the @elucidation, now this seems to have fixed it,
have a couple of other laptop that can be @restored to alsa0only

now i dont know alot of things, and with alsa, never had to anything, besides configuration when i wanted to use an usb-soundcard instead of the internal. see, my usecase are very limited, not that i expect everything to magically work, but some time things are better expected.

also, since started on linux journey, found it very strange to say the least , that when wanting to @uninstall say a driver like pulseaudio, this couldwould render the laptop completely broke, like uninstalling the whole desktop, unless one know how to fix via reroute. but this is the wrong place to post this, so ill turn volume down.

igorzwx

Member

Registered: 2024-05-06

Posts: 113  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

@kapqa

Pulseaudio is not a driver. It is, rather, a sort of malware.

XFCE is buggy and crappy, and it does not support "alsa-only".

The best solution might be Devuan MATE Desktop (without pulseaudio and pipewire).
It works without problems even on very old computers (such as those of 2001).
Although, of course, web browsers are rather slow on very old computers.

To summarize:
The manual is here:
_https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=53969#p53969
See also:
_https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=54059#p54059

igorzwx

Member

Registered: 2024-05-06

Posts: 113  

Re: Thoughts on Pipewire

since started on linux journey, found it very strange to say the least , that when wanting to @uninstall say a driver like pulseaudio, this couldwould render the laptop completely broke, like uninstalling the whole desktop

xfce4 and mate-desktop-environment are meta-packages, they can be safely removed.
See: _https://wiki.debian.org/metapackage
Meta-packages are not completely empty, they have inside  a list of dependencies.

On the other hand, to fix problems with desktop, you may reinstall your Linux Desktop Environment.
That is, you can simply reinstall a meta-package. For example:

 sudo apt-get --reinstall install mate-desktop-environment

See also: _https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/debian-ubuntu-linux-reinstall-a-package-using-apt-get-command/

Desktop environment - ArchWiki
_https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_environment

If you want to learn something about Linux Desktop environments, you may try to install MATE:

How to Install MATE Desktop and remove XFCE

1. Installing MATE

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install mate-desktop-environment 
sudo apt install mate-desktop-environment-extras

This may re-install pulseaudio, but it is easy to remove.
You may also need to unhold pulseaudio crap.

$ apt-mark showhold
pavucontrol
pipewire
pipewire-alsa
pipewire-audio
pipewire-audio-client-libraries
pipewire-bin
pipewire-doc
pipewire-jack
pipewire-libcamera
pipewire-media-session
pipewire-media-session-alsa
pipewire-media-session-jack
pipewire-media-session-pulseaudio
pipewire-pulse
pipewire-tests
pipewire-v4l2
pulseaudio
pulseaudio-equalizer
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
pulseaudio-module-gsettings
pulseaudio-module-jack
pulseaudio-module-lirc
pulseaudio-module-raop
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf
pulseaudio-utils

$ apt-mark
apt 2.6.1devuan1 (amd64)
Usage: apt-mark [options] {auto|manual} pkg1 [pkg2 ...]

Most used commands:
  auto - Mark the given packages as automatically installed
  manual - Mark the given packages as manually installed
  minimize-manual - Mark all dependencies of meta packages as automatically installed.
  hold - Mark a package as held back
  unhold - Unset a package set as held back
  showauto - Print the list of automatically installed packages
  showmanual - Print the list of manually installed packages
  showhold - Print the list of packages on hold

To select MATE Desktop as default, run

$ sudo update-alternatives --config x-session-manager
There are 3 choices for the alternative x-session-manager (providing /usr/bin/x-session-manager).

  Selection    Path                    Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/bin/startxfce4      50        auto mode
  1            /usr/bin/mate-session    50        manual mode
  2            /usr/bin/startxfce4      50        manual mode
  3            /usr/bin/xfce4-session   40        manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 1 

It should be like this:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config x-session-manager
There are 3 choices for the alternative x-session-manager (providing /usr/bin/x-session-manager).

  Selection    Path                    Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
  0            /usr/bin/mate-session    50        auto mode
* 1            /usr/bin/mate-session    50        manual mode
  2            /usr/bin/startxfce4      50        manual mode
  3            /usr/bin/xfce4-session   40        manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 

SLIM - ArchWiki
_https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SLiM

2. Removing XFCE (optional)

$ sudo dpkg -l | grep .xfce

$ sudo apt purge xfce*

$ sudo apt autoremove 

See also:
_https://tecadmin.net/how-to-install-mate-desktop-on-debian-11/

Last edited by igorzwx (2025-01-29 20:16:52)