{"slug": "pipewire", "name": "PipeWire", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "Linux multimedia server that handles audio and video streams, replacing PulseAudio and JACK.", "recommenders": 8, "commenters": 11, "warners": 1, "score": 6.514, "rising": 0.04, "first": "2025-11-19", "latest": "2026-10-10", "why": "Liked for low-latency audio in Linux DAWs like Bitwig, fixing the instability commenters had with PulseAudio, and making virtual audio routing straightforward.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 8, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 0, 4, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["DAW latency", "Reliability"], "caveat": "Live recording latency", "short_quote": "I switched to PipeWire ~3 years ago and so I know Linux audio has been rock-solid and pretty much solved already.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://pipewire.org", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["PipeWire"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked for low-latency audio in Linux DAWs like Bitwig", "cites": [{"id": 793043842, "item_id": 49565240, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49565240", "by": "belthesar", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio engine for low latency operation", "excerpt": "I know this doesn't address all your concerns, but I switched from Ableton Live to Bitwig Studio for unrelated reasons to my leaving Windows behind, and I was thoroughly pleased with how easy the transition was between the two DAWs (I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise given how many ex-Ableton devs work on Bitwig), and how well the Linux build of Bitwig worked. Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio e", "context": "", "use_case": "low-latency Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11"}, {"id": 759289121, "item_id": 47455570, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47455570", "by": "pgwalsh", "date": "2026-03-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "People complained about pipewire and wireplumber too, but they're fantastic. It's great in the DAW.", "excerpt": "Wayland is the future and yes it took some time but I've been using it for a while. Sure there are annoyances but nothing terrible. People complained about pipewire and wireplumber too, but they're fantastic. It's great in the DAW. It just takes a long time to get everything compatible.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio in DAW", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}, {"id": 748854612, "item_id": 46803413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803413", "by": "shams93", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With pipewire and new kernel changes everything is coming together for linux to perform much better than windows + asio.", "excerpt": "This is a nice resource. Personally I use linux vst plugin on bespoke synth. But bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux. With pipewire and new kernel changes everything is coming together for linux to perform much better than windows + asio.", "context": "", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native Linux VST plugin directory"}]}, {"text": ", fixing the instability commenters had with PulseAudio, and making virtual audio routing straightforward.", "cites": [{"id": 748676160, "item_id": 46792260, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46792260", "by": "PunchyHamster", "date": "2026-01-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "that just solved itself moving to pipewire", "excerpt": "> The people who had no issues with Pulseaudio; used a mainstream distribution. Those distributions did the heavy lifting of making sure stuff fit together in a cohesive way. Incorrect. I used mainstream distro, still had issues, that just solved itself moving to pipewire. Issues like it literally crashing or emitting spur of max volume noise once every few months for no discernable reason. Pulseaudio also completely", "context": "Linux user doing music", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "PulseAudio", "story": "Lennart Poettering, Christian Brauner founded a new company"}, {"id": 743658834, "item_id": 46478677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478677", "by": "ku1ik", "date": "2026-01-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to PipeWire ~3 years ago and so I know Linux audio has been rock-solid and pretty much solved already.", "excerpt": "Here's a copy of my Mastodon post [1] from Oct 2025: --- I had a job interview yesterday, which happened via Google Meet. Even though I use my desktop Linux workstation and Firefox 99% of the time for everything, my first instinct was to do this interview on a MacBook and Chrome, to avoid surprises and not look unprofessional if something doesn't work, which has happened in the past. Last year, when I was asked to sh", "context": "Linux desktop user for over 20 years", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}, {"id": 735833841, "item_id": 45989615, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45989615", "by": "MegaThorx", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With Pipewire, this setup was not too difficult and works reliably.", "excerpt": "About two months ago, I switched from Windows to Chrome OS, and I haven't missed Windows at all. The only thing that needed some adjustment was my audio setup. I have virtual channels for the system, music, chat, and games. These are then mapped to my Rodecaster Pro II. With Pipewire, this setup was not too difficult and works reliably. Gaming works perfectly fine. The only application I miss is ShareX for taking scr", "context": "", "use_case": "virtual audio channels", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable"}]}, {"text": " The main complaint, from one Ardour user, is that its latency is still too high for recording live performances", "cites": [{"id": 792408273, "item_id": 49525517, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525517", "by": "el_memorioso", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances", "excerpt": "I use Ardour on Linux when I have to and what is terrible is that to get acceptable latency and jitter I have to use the sound system at the ALSA level. This kills sound for any other app I happen to be running. Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances and getting jackd to run properly with Ardour is something I haven't had success with yet, though to be fair I want to record music an", "context": "", "use_case": "audio recording", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run macOS Software on Linux"}]}, {"text": ", and that sound often needs restarting after quitting the DAW.", "cites": [{"id": 792408273, "item_id": 49525517, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525517", "by": "el_memorioso", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances", "excerpt": "I use Ardour on Linux when I have to and what is terrible is that to get acceptable latency and jitter I have to use the sound system at the ALSA level. This kills sound for any other app I happen to be running. Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances and getting jackd to run properly with Ardour is something I haven't had success with yet, though to be fair I want to record music an", "context": "", "use_case": "audio recording", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run macOS Software on Linux"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "DAW latency", "summary": "Commenters use it as a low-latency audio engine for music production on Linux.", "quotes": [{"id": 793043842, "item_id": 49565240, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49565240", "by": "belthesar", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio engine for low latency operation", "excerpt": "I know this doesn't address all your concerns, but I switched from Ableton Live to Bitwig Studio for unrelated reasons to my leaving Windows behind, and I was thoroughly pleased with how easy the transition was between the two DAWs (I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise given how many ex-Ableton devs work on Bitwig), and how well the Linux build of Bitwig worked. Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio e", "context": "", "use_case": "low-latency Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11"}, {"id": 748854612, "item_id": 46803413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803413", "by": "shams93", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With pipewire and new kernel changes everything is coming together for linux to perform much better than windows + asio.", "excerpt": "This is a nice resource. Personally I use linux vst plugin on bespoke synth. But bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux. With pipewire and new kernel changes everything is coming together for linux to perform much better than windows + asio.", "context": "", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native Linux VST plugin directory"}, {"id": 759289121, "item_id": 47455570, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47455570", "by": "pgwalsh", "date": "2026-03-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "People complained about pipewire and wireplumber too, but they're fantastic. It's great in the DAW.", "excerpt": "Wayland is the future and yes it took some time but I've been using it for a while. Sure there are annoyances but nothing terrible. People complained about pipewire and wireplumber too, but they're fantastic. It's great in the DAW. It just takes a long time to get everything compatible.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio in DAW", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}]}, {"label": "Reliability", "summary": "Users who switched from PulseAudio describe Linux audio as stable and solved.", "quotes": [{"id": 748676160, "item_id": 46792260, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46792260", "by": "PunchyHamster", "date": "2026-01-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "that just solved itself moving to pipewire", "excerpt": "> The people who had no issues with Pulseaudio; used a mainstream distribution. Those distributions did the heavy lifting of making sure stuff fit together in a cohesive way. Incorrect. I used mainstream distro, still had issues, that just solved itself moving to pipewire. Issues like it literally crashing or emitting spur of max volume noise once every few months for no discernable reason. Pulseaudio also completely", "context": "Linux user doing music", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "PulseAudio", "story": "Lennart Poettering, Christian Brauner founded a new company"}, {"id": 743658834, "item_id": 46478677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478677", "by": "ku1ik", "date": "2026-01-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to PipeWire ~3 years ago and so I know Linux audio has been rock-solid and pretty much solved already.", "excerpt": "Here's a copy of my Mastodon post [1] from Oct 2025: --- I had a job interview yesterday, which happened via Google Meet. Even though I use my desktop Linux workstation and Firefox 99% of the time for everything, my first instinct was to do this interview on a MacBook and Chrome, to avoid surprises and not look unprofessional if something doesn't work, which has happened in the past. Last year, when I was asked to sh", "context": "Linux desktop user for over 20 years", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}, {"id": 735833841, "item_id": 45989615, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45989615", "by": "MegaThorx", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With Pipewire, this setup was not too difficult and works reliably.", "excerpt": "About two months ago, I switched from Windows to Chrome OS, and I haven't missed Windows at all. The only thing that needed some adjustment was my audio setup. I have virtual channels for the system, music, chat, and games. These are then mapped to my Rodecaster Pro II. With Pipewire, this setup was not too difficult and works reliably. Gaming works perfectly fine. The only application I miss is ShareX for taking scr", "context": "", "use_case": "virtual audio channels", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable"}]}, {"label": "Flexible routing", "summary": "It supports custom setups such as virtual channels, network audio sinks, and tuned laptop speaker profiles.", "quotes": [{"id": 735833841, "item_id": 45989615, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45989615", "by": "MegaThorx", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With Pipewire, this setup was not too difficult and works reliably.", "excerpt": "About two months ago, I switched from Windows to Chrome OS, and I haven't missed Windows at all. The only thing that needed some adjustment was my audio setup. I have virtual channels for the system, music, chat, and games. These are then mapped to my Rodecaster Pro II. With Pipewire, this setup was not too difficult and works reliably. Gaming works perfectly fine. The only application I miss is ShareX for taking scr", "context": "", "use_case": "virtual audio channels", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable"}, {"id": 800599346, "item_id": 50037459, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50037459", "by": "rrego", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "audio sink for pipewire so I can use my tv speakers from my desktop", "excerpt": "Yeah, pretty much exactly the same scenario. I used gallium os on an Acer Chromebook but I think that distro has been long discontinued. I gave that laptop away though. Now I just use a (different) chromebook as a audio sink for pipewire so I can use my tv speakers from my desktop. Its just running straight debian though.", "context": "", "use_case": "network audio sink", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google ending ChromeOS support two years early"}, {"id": 791819345, "item_id": 49488709, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488709", "by": "audidude", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "map those to pipewire settings with wireplumber to get very similar output to windows", "excerpt": "If you have a thinkpad, you can probably extract the XML configuration from the windows driver installer using innoextract for your laptop. Then you can map those to pipewire settings with wireplumber to get very similar output to windows which was tuned in labs by the manufacturer (minus dolby atmos/dax). Here is one for a recent thinkpad p1 gen8, no app necessary. https://github.com/chergert/thinkpad-p1-gen8-pipewi", "context": "ThinkPad user", "use_case": "laptop speaker tuning", "switched_from": "", "story": "EasyEffects can improve laptop speaker sound quality"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Live recording latency", "summary": "One commenter found its latency too high for recording live performances and had to drop to raw ALSA.", "quotes": [{"id": 792408273, "item_id": 49525517, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525517", "by": "el_memorioso", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances", "excerpt": "I use Ardour on Linux when I have to and what is terrible is that to get acceptable latency and jitter I have to use the sound system at the ALSA level. This kills sound for any other app I happen to be running. Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances and getting jackd to run properly with Ardour is something I haven't had success with yet, though to be fair I want to record music an", "context": "", "use_case": "audio recording", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run macOS Software on Linux"}]}, {"label": "Recovery after DAWs", "summary": "After quitting Ardour, the same user often had to restart PipeWire and WirePlumber to get sound back.", "quotes": [{"id": 792408273, "item_id": 49525517, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525517", "by": "el_memorioso", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances", "excerpt": "I use Ardour on Linux when I have to and what is terrible is that to get acceptable latency and jitter I have to use the sound system at the ALSA level. This kills sound for any other app I happen to be running. Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances and getting jackd to run properly with Ardour is something I haven't had success with yet, though to be fair I want to record music an", "context": "", "use_case": "audio recording", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run macOS Software on Linux"}]}, {"label": "Compatibility rollout", "summary": "A fan notes that getting everything compatible has taken a long time.", "quotes": [{"id": 759289121, "item_id": 47455570, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47455570", "by": "pgwalsh", "date": "2026-03-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "People complained about pipewire and wireplumber too, but they're fantastic. It's great in the DAW.", "excerpt": "Wayland is the future and yes it took some time but I've been using it for a while. Sure there are annoyances but nothing terrible. People complained about pipewire and wireplumber too, but they're fantastic. It's great in the DAW. It just takes a long time to get everything compatible.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio in DAW", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}]}], "who": [{"by": "audidude", "context": "ThinkPad user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488709", "date": "2026-08-29"}, {"by": "PunchyHamster", "context": "Linux user doing music", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46792260", "date": "2026-01-27"}, {"by": "ku1ik", "context": "Linux desktop user for over 20 years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478677", "date": "2026-01-03"}, {"by": "vyskocilm", "context": "former sysadmin", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46464865", "date": "2026-01-02"}], "tags": ["for Linux musicians", "for audio routing setups", "for ThinkPad owners", "for Linux gamers"], "use_cases": ["linux audio", "audio", "network audio sink", "low-latency linux audio", "audio recording", "laptop speaker tuning"], "compared": [{"slug": "wireplumber", "name": "WirePlumber", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "bitwig", "name": "Bitwig", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "systemd", "name": "systemd", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "wayland", "name": "Wayland", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49893653", "title": "Google ending ChromeOS support two years early", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562895", "title": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49515830", "title": "Run macOS Software on Linux", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49479924", "title": "EasyEffects can improve laptop speaker sound quality", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448328", "title": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46858829", "title": "Linux from Scratch Ends SysVinit Support", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 4}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 800599346, "item_id": 50037459, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50037459", "by": "rrego", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "audio sink for pipewire so I can use my tv speakers from my desktop", "excerpt": "Yeah, pretty much exactly the same scenario. I used gallium os on an Acer Chromebook but I think that distro has been long discontinued. I gave that laptop away though. Now I just use a (different) chromebook as a audio sink for pipewire so I can use my tv speakers from my desktop. Its just running straight debian though.", "context": "", "use_case": "network audio sink", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google ending ChromeOS support two years early"}, {"id": 793043842, "item_id": 49565240, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49565240", "by": "belthesar", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio engine for low latency operation", "excerpt": "I know this doesn't address all your concerns, but I switched from Ableton Live to Bitwig Studio for unrelated reasons to my leaving Windows behind, and I was thoroughly pleased with how easy the transition was between the two DAWs (I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise given how many ex-Ableton devs work on Bitwig), and how well the Linux build of Bitwig worked. Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio e", "context": "", "use_case": "low-latency Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11"}, {"id": 792408273, "item_id": 49525517, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525517", "by": "el_memorioso", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances", "excerpt": "I use Ardour on Linux when I have to and what is terrible is that to get acceptable latency and jitter I have to use the sound system at the ALSA level. This kills sound for any other app I happen to be running. Pipewire introduces too much latency for recording good live performances and getting jackd to run properly with Ardour is something I haven't had success with yet, though to be fair I want to record music an", "context": "", "use_case": "audio recording", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run macOS Software on Linux"}, {"id": 791819345, "item_id": 49488709, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488709", "by": "audidude", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "map those to pipewire settings with wireplumber to get very similar output to windows", "excerpt": "If you have a thinkpad, you can probably extract the XML configuration from the windows driver installer using innoextract for your laptop. Then you can map those to pipewire settings with wireplumber to get very similar output to windows which was tuned in labs by the manufacturer (minus dolby atmos/dax). Here is one for a recent thinkpad p1 gen8, no app necessary. https://github.com/chergert/thinkpad-p1-gen8-pipewi", "context": "ThinkPad user", "use_case": "laptop speaker tuning", "switched_from": "", "story": "EasyEffects can improve laptop speaker sound quality"}, {"id": 759289121, "item_id": 47455570, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47455570", "by": "pgwalsh", "date": "2026-03-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "People complained about pipewire and wireplumber too, but they're fantastic. It's great in the DAW.", "excerpt": "Wayland is the future and yes it took some time but I've been using it for a while. Sure there are annoyances but nothing terrible. People complained about pipewire and wireplumber too, but they're fantastic. It's great in the DAW. It just takes a long time to get everything compatible.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio in DAW", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}, {"id": 749759011, "item_id": 46859938, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859938", "by": "hparadiz", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Wayland KDE Plasma with Pipewire setup that I game on", "excerpt": "OpenRC on Gentoo works great. I have a full bleeding edge Wayland KDE Plasma with Pipewire setup that I game on. OpenRC recently added user \"units\" aka services running as a user after a session start. Something that many new GUI user space applications rely on for various things. There are growing pains. https://bugs.gentoo.org/936123 Especially when upstream hard requires systemd. More annoying when there's no real", "context": "", "use_case": "audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux from Scratch Ends SysVinit Support"}, {"id": 748854612, "item_id": 46803413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803413", "by": "shams93", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With pipewire and new kernel changes everything is coming together for linux to perform much better than windows + asio.", "excerpt": "This is a nice resource. Personally I use linux vst plugin on bespoke synth. But bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux. With pipewire and new kernel changes everything is coming together for linux to perform much better than windows + asio.", "context": "", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native Linux VST plugin directory"}, {"id": 748676160, "item_id": 46792260, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46792260", "by": "PunchyHamster", "date": "2026-01-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "that just solved itself moving to pipewire", "excerpt": "> The people who had no issues with Pulseaudio; used a mainstream distribution. Those distributions did the heavy lifting of making sure stuff fit together in a cohesive way. Incorrect. I used mainstream distro, still had issues, that just solved itself moving to pipewire. Issues like it literally crashing or emitting spur of max volume noise once every few months for no discernable reason. Pulseaudio also completely", "context": "Linux user doing music", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "PulseAudio", "story": "Lennart Poettering, Christian Brauner founded a new company"}, {"id": 743658834, "item_id": 46478677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478677", "by": "ku1ik", "date": "2026-01-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to PipeWire ~3 years ago and so I know Linux audio has been rock-solid and pretty much solved already.", "excerpt": "Here's a copy of my Mastodon post [1] from Oct 2025: --- I had a job interview yesterday, which happened via Google Meet. Even though I use my desktop Linux workstation and Firefox 99% of the time for everything, my first instinct was to do this interview on a MacBook and Chrome, to avoid surprises and not look unprofessional if something doesn't work, which has happened in the past. Last year, when I was asked to sh", "context": "Linux desktop user for over 20 years", "use_case": "Linux audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}, {"id": 743437844, "item_id": 46464865, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46464865", "by": "vyskocilm", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "used PipeWire from the earliest versions", "excerpt": "> I don\u2019t feel like a consumer, but a janitor. I don\u2019t want this. I think it was Jorge Castro, the creator of Universal Blue, who called it the sysadmin culture. Most Linux distros are made by sysadmins for sysadmins, and you're expected to change and configure your system. I was a sysadmin myself for a long time. I used Slackware; switched from the 2.4 kernel to 2.6; tweaked CFLAGS on Gentoo; replaced SysV init with", "context": "former sysadmin", "use_case": "audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it"}, {"id": 735833841, "item_id": 45989615, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45989615", "by": "MegaThorx", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With Pipewire, this setup was not too difficult and works reliably.", "excerpt": "About two months ago, I switched from Windows to Chrome OS, and I haven't missed Windows at all. The only thing that needed some adjustment was my audio setup. I have virtual channels for the system, music, chat, and games. These are then mapped to my Rodecaster Pro II. With Pipewire, this setup was not too difficult and works reliably. Gaming works perfectly fine. The only application I miss is ShareX for taking scr", "context": "", "use_case": "virtual audio channels", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable"}]}