pipewire

Low-latency multimedia processing daemon

TLDR

Start PipeWire daemon

$ pipewire

Use different config file

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

Increase verbosity level

$ pipewire -vvv

Display help

$ pipewire --help

SYNOPSIS

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.

PARAMETERS

-c, --config _file_

Use alternate configuration file

-v, --verbose

Increase verbosity (use multiple times for more)

-h, --help

Display help information

--version

Display version information

CONFIGURATION

/etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf

System-wide PipeWire configuration file.

~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/

User-level configuration drop-in directory for overrides.

/etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/

System-level drop-in directory for additional configuration fragments.

PIPEWIRE_RUNTIME_DIR

Override the runtime directory for PipeWire sockets.

INSTALL

sudo apt install pipewire-bin

sudo dnf install pipewire

sudo pacman -S pipewire

sudo apk add pipewire

sudo zypper install pipewire

brew install pipewire

nix profile install nixpkgs#pipewire

CAVEATS

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

HISTORY

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.