pipewire

Start PipeWire daemon

$ pipewire

$ pipewire --config [path/to/file.conf]

$ pipewire -vvv

$ pipewire --help

pipewire [-c config] [-v...] [--help] [--version]

pipewire is a modern multimedia processing daemon that handles audio and video streams. It provides low-latency capture and playback, replacing both PulseAudio for consumer audio and JACK for professional audio applications.
The daemon manages connections between applications and devices, handles format conversion, and provides a graph-based routing model. It's typically started automatically by systemd user services.

-c, --config _file_

Use alternate configuration file

Increase verbosity (use multiple times for more)

Display help information

Display version information

Usually started via systemd, not manually. Requires pipewire-pulse for PulseAudio compatibility. Configuration changes need daemon restart. May conflict with running PulseAudio instances.

PipeWire was developed by Wim Taymans at Red Hat. It emerged from PulseVideo experiments and became a unified solution for Linux multimedia, officially adopted by Fedora 34 in 2021 and subsequently by other distributions.

pipewire-pulse(1), pw-cli(1), pw-top(1), wireplumber(1)