4 ms·

Many (or even most) of the issues with pulseaudio were actually sound driver bugs only being resurfaces by pulseaudio, as it was using them in a more complicate

by kaba0 3y ago

Many (or even most) of the issues with pulseaudio were actually sound driver bugs only being resurfaces by pulseaudio, as it was using them in a more complicated matter. It is pretty unfair to blame Poettering over anything wrong in your life, as many of you do, for some reasonx

ric2b 3y ago
How does pipewire work around those driver issues? Could pulseaudio use the same techniques but there was just no development capacity for it?
- kaba0 3y ago
  These were only true of pulseaudio in the early days of it. They are solved for good, by “simply” fixing the most common drivers. But in general, it couldn’t have been solved any other way.
  - stuaxo 3y ago
    Exactly - and going back further it was even worse. Around 2001 using audio on my computer (via OSS at the time) would crash it on Linux regularly. Right not I have some weird problems with graphics from time to time, hopefully these iron out. I could really do with the desktop being able resume if the graphics driver restarts, or even switch between drivers.
lupusreal 3y ago
Pipewire fixed my longstanding trouble with getting Bluetooth headphones to connect, same kernel/drivers under which pulseaudio was hopeless. I spent an hour power cycling my headphones and turning bluetooth on and off, restarting pulseaudio, fucking around with bluetoothctl, with the headphones connecting to bluetooth but not getting listed in pulseaudio... The usual nonsense except this final time my frustration overcame the activation energy to try something completely new so I installed Pipewire. It immediately worked and hasn't broken since. Basically what I'm saying is that pulseaudio has serious issues even with new "fixed" drivers and distros switching to Pipewire is making the situation much better for many users.
- kaba0 3y ago
  I believe pipewire just has support for more modern bluetooth codecs.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    To be clear, these were bluetooth headphones which would sometimes work with pulseaudio but it was a coinflip whether they would work properly or jerk me around for an hour. On paper it all should have worked, but pulseaudio just isn't reliable.

by kaba0 3y ago

ric2b 3y ago

How does pipewire work around those driver issues? Could pulseaudio use the same techniques but there was just no development capacity for it?

kaba0 3y ago
These were only true of pulseaudio in the early days of it. They are solved for good, by “simply” fixing the most common drivers. But in general, it couldn’t have been solved any other way.
- stuaxo 3y ago
  Exactly - and going back further it was even worse. Around 2001 using audio on my computer (via OSS at the time) would crash it on Linux regularly. Right not I have some weird problems with graphics from time to time, hopefully these iron out. I could really do with the desktop being able resume if the graphics driver restarts, or even switch between drivers.

lupusreal 3y ago

Pipewire fixed my longstanding trouble with getting Bluetooth headphones to connect, same kernel/drivers under which pulseaudio was hopeless. I spent an hour power cycling my headphones and turning bluetooth on and off, restarting pulseaudio, fucking around with bluetoothctl, with the headphones connecting to bluetooth but not getting listed in pulseaudio... The usual nonsense except this final time my frustration overcame the activation energy to try something completely new so I installed Pipewire. It immediately worked and hasn't broken since. Basically what I'm saying is that pulseaudio has serious issues even with new "fixed" drivers and distros switching to Pipewire is making the situation much better for many users.

kaba0 3y ago
I believe pipewire just has support for more modern bluetooth codecs.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  To be clear, these were bluetooth headphones which would sometimes work with pulseaudio but it was a coinflip whether they would work properly or jerk me around for an hour. On paper it all should have worked, but pulseaudio just isn't reliable.