Reasons
=======
Gentoo has had a longstanding complaint that desktop profiles do not enable a suitable working audio setting, which causes confusion for new users. An example of when this is a user can end up compiling Firefox without audio support, meaning the user will have to add the USE flags and then compile Firefox a second time. This not only wastes time for the user, but also increases support workload by the volunteers that provides it.
This change will make PipeWire the default sound server for all Gentoo desktop profiles which support it, rather than just KDE Plasma profiles as was the previous norm[1]. PipeWire has been widely adopted by Linux as a whole due to its feature to work with older standards such as PulseAudio, and means Gentoo will be less likely to need users to make any follow-up changes to their system, related to audio.
Changes =======
New global USE flags enabled: pulseaudio
Alpha and HPPA currently do not have PipeWire support enabled so only PulseAudio is enabled.
These can be requested by users at a later date after confirming they work with the respected projects.
Users not wishing to change ===========================
For users not wanting to change from the their current desktop profile setup, then all that is required is to set
User Action Required ====================
In order to enact all changes:
If using systemd, to configure the PipeWire daemon(s), run the following commands:
Afterwards all that should be required is a reboot, however in the unlikely event of issues then check out how to configure PipeWire for your purposes. [1][2].
In order to keep a previously configured PulseAudio only system (i.e. keep using media-sound/pulseaudio-daemon), set
Gentoo has had a longstanding complaint that desktop profiles do not enable a suitable working audio setting, which causes confusion for new users. An example of when this is a user can end up compiling Firefox without audio support, meaning the user will have to add the USE flags and then compile Firefox a second time. This not only wastes time for the user, but also increases support workload by the volunteers that provides it.
This change will make PipeWire the default sound server for all Gentoo desktop profiles which support it, rather than just KDE Plasma profiles as was the previous norm[1]. PipeWire has been widely adopted by Linux as a whole due to its feature to work with older standards such as PulseAudio, and means Gentoo will be less likely to need users to make any follow-up changes to their system, related to audio.
Changes =======
New global USE flags enabled: pulseaudio
-> Enables PulseAudio support for packages as a fallback when native
PipeWire isn't available.
-> These settings will enable PipeWire by default where available and
also tell PipeWire to act as our PulseAudio server where there is no
native PipeWire support.
-> In Wayland sessions, the video functionality of PipeWire is not only
used for screen sharing but also to take screenshots and recordings or
simply to cast window content onto task managers' window previews.
As this is basically a free and beneficial addition as it provides
things like screenshotting and webcam access under Wayland.
Alpha and HPPA currently do not have PipeWire support enabled so only PulseAudio is enabled.
These can be requested by users at a later date after confirming they work with the respected projects.
Users not wishing to change ===========================
For users not wanting to change from the their current desktop profile setup, then all that is required is to set
USE="-pipewire -pulseaudio -screencast"
User Action Required ====================
In order to enact all changes:
emerge -avDU @world
If using systemd, to configure the PipeWire daemon(s), run the following commands:
$ systemctl --user --now disable pulseaudio.service pulseaudio.socket
$ systemctl --user --now disable pipewire-media-session.service
$ systemctl --user --now enable pipewire.socket pipewire-pulse.socket
$ systemctl --user --force enable wireplumber.service
Afterwards all that should be required is a reboot, however in the unlikely event of issues then check out how to configure PipeWire for your purposes. [1][2].
In order to keep a previously configured PulseAudio only system (i.e. keep using media-sound/pulseaudio-daemon), set
USE="-pipewire -screencast" in /etc/portage/make.conf
media-video/pipewire -sound-server in /etc/portage/package.use
USE="-pipewire -pulseaudio -screencast" in /etc/portage/make.conf