This may be a much covered topic. I recently switched to Kubuntu because of KDEs support for HDR video. But also I found Audacity didn’t work correctly, and even though ALSA was installed, it just didn’t seem to work. No problem, I’ll use Jack to make the connections. It refused to work also. I then found Kunbuntu used Pipewire, as of yet Audacity does not support it. (facepalm). I know Pipewire modern and better all around. Likely it will will become the new standard. Does anyone have an idea where support for Pipewire is on the road map for Audacity?
Thanks for the reply Steve. Yeah, thought I could make it work with JACK but the JACK server won’t start at all. It doesn’t find ALSA or anything to work with.
Unfortunate;y I can’t really help you to get it working, other than to say to check your Pipewire setup. For me, I just had to install Pipewire and then a pipewire device appeared in Audacity’s device options. But at least it shows that Audacity does work with Pipewire.
As an aside, I recently bought a new laptop to replace my 9 year old laptop (XFCE), and I was seriously considering KDE. I think KDE looks great, and the core KDE apps are on the whole very polished. However, I did find that for anything beyond the default setup, KDE could be less stable and rather quirky. I finally settled on the Mate desktop, which looks a bit more modern than XFCE, but is still pretty light, just as flexible, and the look and feel is more customisable, but without the overwhelming number of configuration options found in KDE.
Thanks Again Steve. I’m working my way through trying different confs for Pipewire. I did make sure Pipewire-Jack was installed and I did get the pipewire resource to show up as a device in Audacity, but connecting it to the port with the intended audio is the challenge. Jack server won’t connect at all. If I an get that working, I should be able to make everything work.
I can’t say whether it uses Pipewire or not but I have been really impressed by TuxedoOS. It’s basically Kubuntu without snaps and a later version of Plasma. If I was looking to switch from Linux Mint MATE, TuxedoOS would be my first choice.
I’m desperately fighting the urge to start reciting from the Monty Python ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch. 
You need to have pipewire-pulseaudio installed to use PipeWire with Audacity. (At least, that’s the Fedora package name.) While Audacity doesn’t have direct PipeWire support, it does have support for PulseAudio, which PipeWire emulates. (Or, can emulate.)
Help > Diagnostics > Audio Device Info… on my PipeWire-enabled, PulseAudio-emulating Fedora 42 system:
==============================
Default recording device number: 11
Default playback device number: 11
==============================
Device ID: 0
Device name: HDA Intel PCH: ALC662 rev1 Analog (hw:0,0)
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 2
Playback channels: 2
Low Recording Latency: 0.00870748
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: 0.0348299
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
44100
48000
96000
Supported Capture Rates:
44100
48000
96000
==============================
Device ID: 1
Device name: HDA Intel PCH: ALC662 rev1 Alt Analog (hw:0,2)
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 2
Playback channels: 0
Low Recording Latency: 0.00870748
Low Playback Latency: -1
High Recording Latency: 0.0348299
High Playback Latency: -1
Supported Capture Rates:
44100
48000
96000
==============================
Device ID: 2
Device name: HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 0 (hw:0,3)
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 0
Playback channels: 8
Low Recording Latency: -1
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: -1
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
==============================
Device ID: 3
Device name: sysdefault
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 128
Playback channels: 128
Low Recording Latency: 0.0213333
Low Playback Latency: 0.0213333
High Recording Latency: 0.0213333
High Playback Latency: 0.0213333
Supported Playback Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
Supported Capture Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
==============================
Device ID: 4
Device name: front
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 0
Playback channels: 2
Low Recording Latency: -1
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: -1
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
44100
48000
96000
==============================
Device ID: 5
Device name: surround40
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 0
Playback channels: 2
Low Recording Latency: -1
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: -1
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
44100
48000
96000
==============================
Device ID: 6
Device name: surround51
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 0
Playback channels: 2
Low Recording Latency: -1
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: -1
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
44100
48000
96000
==============================
Device ID: 7
Device name: surround71
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 0
Playback channels: 2
Low Recording Latency: -1
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: -1
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
44100
48000
96000
==============================
Device ID: 8
Device name: hdmi
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 0
Playback channels: 8
Low Recording Latency: -1
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: -1
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
==============================
Device ID: 9
Device name: pipewire
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 64
Playback channels: 64
Low Recording Latency: 0.00870748
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: 0.0348299
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
Supported Capture Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
==============================
Device ID: 10
Device name: dmix
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 0
Playback channels: 2
Low Recording Latency: -1
Low Playback Latency: 0.0213333
High Recording Latency: -1
High Playback Latency: 0.0213333
Supported Playback Rates:
48000
==============================
Device ID: 11
Device name: default
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 64
Playback channels: 64
Low Recording Latency: 0.00870748
Low Playback Latency: 0.00870748
High Recording Latency: 0.0348299
High Playback Latency: 0.0348299
Supported Playback Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
Supported Capture Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
==============================
Device ID: 12
Device name: Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
Host name: JACK Audio Connection Kit
Recording channels: 2
Playback channels: 2
Low Recording Latency: 0
Low Playback Latency: 0.0213333
High Recording Latency: 0
High Playback Latency: 0.0213333
Supported Playback Rates:
48000
Supported Capture Rates:
48000
==============================
Selected recording device: 11 - default
Selected playback device: 9 - pipewire
Supported Rates:
8000
9600
11025
12000
15000
16000
22050
24000
32000
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
Unable to open Portmixer
The “Selected playback device: 9 - pipewire” is actually a PulseAudio virtual ALSA device named “pipewire”, created by pipewire-pulseaudio.
The Debian / Ubuntu name is pipewire-pulse. I also have pipewire-alsa installed.
1 Like
Here is the pipewire installed list:
gstreamer1.0-pipewire/plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libkpipewire-data/plucky,plucky,now 6.3.4-0ubuntu1 all [installed,automatic]
libkpipewire6/plucky,now 6.3.4-0ubuntu1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libkpipewiredmabuf6/plucky,now 6.3.4-0ubuntu1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libkpipewirerecord6/plucky,now 6.3.4-0ubuntu1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libpipewire-0.3-0t64/plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libpipewire-0.3-common/plucky-updates,plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 all [installed,automatic]
libpipewire-0.3-modules/plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
pipewire-alsa/plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
pipewire-audio-client-libraries/plucky-updates,plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 all [installed]
pipewire-bin/plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
pipewire-jack/plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 amd64 [installed]
pipewire-pulse/plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 amd64 [installed]
pipewire/plucky-updates,now 1.2.7-1ubuntu5.1 amd64 [installed]
qml6-module-org-kde-pipewire/plucky,now 6.3.4-0ubuntu1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
But still can‘t get Jack server to run to connect the ports need. Have to figure that out.
Unfortunately, PortAudio (the backend Audacity uses for audio support) doesn’t support pipewire natively (bug report). We’re looking to switch away from it in the near-ish future for that reason.
(but first: porting the UI to Qt for Audacity 4.0)
Interesting. Switching to what?
Aknowledged. I’ve been getting some thing done using Audacity on Windows the past couple weeks (I feel so dirty). Now that you mentioned the interface was going to be reworked in QT, I’m guessing for the ease of further development. But I hope it will retain the “modular” feel to it. I like the fact I can move the controls around and hide the ones I do not use. 
@steve that’s a little bit up in the air. One idea would be using the tracktion engine and then using a native OS-specific audio I/O.
@Dr_Righteous It’s a little different; instead of toolbars with blocks of elements, there’s just one toolbar where you can en/disable individual buttons.
We’ll hopefully get Audacity 4 in the state for a first alpha later this week.
Personally, I don’t trust Jack, I’ve never trusted Jack, and trying to get PipeWire to emulate Jack is not something I’d ever even attempt. I can say definitively that it works very well without Jack, using the PulseAudio / ALSA emulation layers in PipeWire. (Though I can’t comment on latency or other audio-nerd aspects.)
See the Ubuntu-24.04-in-a-VM results I just posted. And that was for recording from the emulated PulseAudio device, even.
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