How do I switch from PulseAudio to PipeWire and back

Ask Fedora
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1

I had a popping noise problem and switched from PipeWire to PulseAudio via sudo dnf swap --allowerasing pipewire-pulseaudio pulseaudio, which fixed my issue (see Speaker makes popping noises).

Now, I see that PipeWire was updated to a new release and want to see if the new release fixes my issue. The release highlights mention

Fix some potential stuttering and crackling in pulse-server.

so I’m hopeful that this release fixes my popping issue and will allow me to remain on PipeWire.

So, how can I switch back to PipeWire to check, then, if the issue is not fixed, switch again to PulseAudio?

Is

  1. sudo dnf swap --allowerasing pulseaudio pipewire-pulseaudio
  2. Check if issue fixed; if not,
  3. sudo dnf swap --allowerasing pipewire-pulseaudio pulseaudio

a correct, clean way to achieve this?

Info

pactl info

Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 35
Server Protocol Version: 35
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 17
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: bryan
Host Name: fedora
Server Name: pulseaudio
Server Version: 15.0
Default Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_63_00.6.analog-stereo
Default Source: alsa_input.pci-0000_63_00.6.analog-stereo
Cookie: 679c:cabd

inxi -A

Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Rembrandt Radeon High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-2: AMD ACP/ACP3X/ACP6x Audio Coprocessor driver: snd_pci_acp6x
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h/19h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.19.14-200.fc36.x86_64 running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.59 running: yes
2

In my opinion it looks ok.
For changes you best check in the change set. Those are listed in the wiki.
Releases/34/ChangeSet - Fedora Project Wiki

To navigate in between different versions you just have to change the release nr. in the URL.

https://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/34/ChangeSet

In F34 Pipewire was introduced and in F35 the change from session manager to Wireplumber.