Howdy, As most, if not all, KDE users know, a while back KDE started using Pipewire. After I saw how it worked, I kinda liked it because it gave me some controls I needed and they made it easier to switch audio around and adjust volume levels on different apps independently. All things considered, it was a improvement. On my main rig, I recently did the switch to KDE6, at least I'm pretty sure anyway. One thing I noticed after the upgrade, I can't find the controls I used to have with the new pipewire. As a example, if I want to watch a video on my TV, I could click the little speaker thing on the bottom panel, click on the app tab, find the app that is playing that video then click the horizontal bars. From there I could select to either send audio to the main speakers or to the HDMI cable which is my TV. I can't find the horizontal bars anymore. I've tried clicking other things thinking they changed what you click but I can't find those controls anywhere.
I checked the USE flags and they look OK. I don't see anything disabled except for things I don't have, either software or hardware wise. I'll put a list of those below. I've looked everywhere I can think of but don't see how to control it anymore. I've had to go back to the old manual way of telling Smplayer to send audio to HDMI. Thing is, sending mpv or other players audio is more difficult. I have some videos that have no audio with Smplayer because they use DTS or something and the sound doesn't work, despite the USE flag being on for it. So, for those I use Qmplay2 or mpv to play. Does anyone know where those controls went or if there is some new way to control that that I've missed? I really liked having those options. It made things a lot easier. USE flag info. root@fireball / # equery u kde-plasma/kpipewire media-video/pipewire [ Legend : U - final flag setting for installation] [ : I - package is installed with flag ] [ Colors : set, unset ] * Found these USE flags for kde-plasma/kpipewire-6.1.1: U I - - debug : Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces - - test : Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently) * Found these USE flags for media-video/pipewire-1.0.7: U I + + X : Enable audible bell for X11 - - abi_x86_32 : 32-bit (x86) libraries - - bluetooth : Enable Bluetooth Support + + dbus : Enable dbus support for anything that needs it (gpsd, gnomemeeting, etc) - - doc : Add extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc). It is recommended to enable per package instead of globally - - echo-cancel : Enable WebRTC-based echo canceller via media-libs/webrtc-audio-processing + + extra : Build pw-cat/pw-play/pw-record + + ffmpeg : Enable ffmpeg/libav-based audio/video codec support - - flatpak : Enable Flatpak support - - gsettings : Use gsettings (dev-libs/glib) to read/save used modules (useful for e.g. media-sound/paprefs - - gstreamer : Add support for media-libs/gstreamer (Streaming media) - - ieee1394 : Enable FireWire/iLink IEEE1394 support (dv, camera, ...) - - jack-client : Install a plugin for running PipeWire as a JACK client - - jack-sdk : Use PipeWire as JACK replacement - - liblc3 : Allow loading LC3 plugins via media-sound/liblc3 - - lv2 : Allow loading LV2 plugins via media-libs/lv2 - - man : Build and install man pages - - modemmanager : Combined with USE=bluetooth, allows PipeWire to perform telephony on mobile devices. + + pipewire-alsa : Replace PulseAudio's ALSA plugin with PipeWire's plugin + + readline : Enable support for libreadline, a GNU line-editing library that almost everyone wants - - roc : Enable roc support for real-time audio streaming over the network, using media-libs/roc-toolkit. See https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/Network#roc + + sound-server : Provide sound server using ALSA and bluetooth devices + + ssl : Enable raop-sink support (needs dev-libs/openssl) - - systemd : Enable use of systemd-specific libraries and features like socket activation or session tracking - - test : Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently) - - v4l : Enable support for video4linux (using linux-headers or userspace libv4l libraries) + + zeroconf : Support for DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD) root@fireball / # Thoughts? Dale :-) :-) P. S. Monitor out for delivery. Today is the day. :-D Oh, I have a lot of dried basil now. Last batch was 8 trays full. I still got some in planters that I will pick again in a few days.
