The purpose of this tutorial is to install PipeWire on Ubuntu Linux. PipeWire is a sound server that can handle playback and capturing of audio and video streams. It is a worthy replacement to other multimedia frameworks such as PulseAudio, which is the default on Ubuntu, and others.
PipeWire was developed by Wim Taymans at Red Hat, and aims to provide better handling of audio and video for Linux systems. It does so by providing lower lantency than other sound servers and also has a superior processing engine. The official site is pipewire.org. Another use case for installing PipeWire is if you are having audio compatibility problems on Ubuntu, such as your Bluetooth device not working.
In this tutorial, we will cover the step by step instructions to install PipeWire on Ubuntu Linux. You will also see how to use PipeWire as your main sound server on Ubuntu, which replaces PulseAudio. We will also show how to revert the changes, in case you decide that PipeWire is not for you and you want to restore to system defaults.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to enable PipeWire PPA repository
- How to install PipeWire software and additional libraries
- How to disable PulseAudio from running by default
- How to enable PipeWire as the default sound server in Ubuntu
- How to verify current sound server in Ubuntu
- How to revert PipeWire installation and restore PulseAudio
| Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
|---|---|
| System | Ubuntu Linux |
| Software | PipeWire |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
How to Install PipeWire on Ubuntu Linux
Follow the step by step instructions below to install PipeWire on your Ubuntu system. This also includes replacing the default sound server (PulseAudio) with PipeWire.
Although PipeWire can be installed from Ubuntu’s default repositories, it is recommended that you use the PPA repo in order to obtain a more up to date version. It will also give you access to some additional packages that we recommend installing alongside PipeWire, to ensure maximum compatibility with your audio devices.
- Start by opening a command line terminal and typing the following command to add the PipeWire PPA.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pipewire-debian/pipewire-upstream
- Next, execute the following two commands to install the PipeWire package on Ubuntu with
aptpackage manager. You should also install thepipewire-audio-client-librariespackage at the same time.$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install pipewire pipewire-audio-client-libraries
- If you are planning to use Bluetooth, GStreamer, or JACK devices with your Ubuntu system, it is also recommended that you install some additional libraries. Otherwise, you may encounter an error when trying to use one of your devices, such as
Bluetooth headset won’t connect after installing pipewirewhen trying to use a Bluetooth headset.$ sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-pipewire libpipewire-0.3-{0,dev,modules} libspa-0.2-{bluetooth,dev,jack,modules} pipewire{,-{audio-client-libraries,pulse,media-session,bin,locales,tests}} - After installation has completed, run the following command to reload the daemon in systemd.
$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
- Next, run the following command to disable PulseAudio in Ubuntu. It will no longer be needed, since we are using PipeWire. However, we will keep it installed on the system in case we need to revert these changes later. These commands will disable the service from running and starting up automatically.
$ systemctl --user --now disable pulseaudio.service pulseaudio.socket
- Now that PulseAudio is disabled, we can start PipeWire and enable it to run automatically upon system boot.
$ systemctl --user --now enable pipewire pipewire-pulse
- As a final step, run the following command to ensure that PipeWire is running.
$ pactl info
Command shows that PipeWire is running on Ubuntu
That’s all there is to it. You are now using PipeWire as your default sound server on Ubuntu.
Revert PipeWire Changes
If you decide that you need to revert the changes you have made by installing PipeWire and disabling PulseAudio, follow the steps below to undo the changes.
- Start by opening a terminal and uninstalling the PipeWire packages that we installed earlier.
$ sudo apt remove pipewire pipewire-audio-client-libraries
- Also remove the additional PipeWire libraries for Bluetooth, GStreamer, and JACK if you installed them before.
$ sudo apt remove gstreamer1.0-pipewire libpipewire-0.3-{0,dev,modules} libspa-0.2-{bluetooth,dev,jack,modules} pipewire{,-{audio-client-libraries,pulse,media-session,bin,locales,tests}} - After the removal has completed, run the following command to reload the daemon in systemd.
$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
- Use the following systemd command to re-enable the PulseAudio service. This command will start the service right now and also enable it to start automatically upon system reboots.
$ systemctl --user --now enable pulseaudio.service pulseaudio.socket
- As a final step, run the following command to ensure that PulseAudio has been completely restored.
$ pactl info
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we saw how to install PipeWire on Ubuntu Linux and use it as the default sound server. This also included installing additional PipeWire audio and video libraries to maximize compatibility with peripheral devices, and disabling the default PulseAudio services from running with systemd. If you find that PipeWire is causing problems with your audio or video, you can always follow the steps to revert the changes and restore PulseAudio.