Subject: [bug#63863] [PATCH] gnu: home: Add support for home-pipewire-service

From: Brian Cully <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2023 11:56:20 -0400

Andrew Tropin <[email-masked]> writes:
>> +(define (home-pipewire-shepherd-service config)
>> +  (shepherd-service
>> +   (documentation "PipeWire screen and audio sharing.")
>
> The description seems a little bit missleading, while PipeWire 
> can do
> screensharing, it's not only or even primary role.

I'm not sure I understand the objection. Would you rather I 
mention its audio capabilities before screen sharing? Or would 
something like "PipeWire media processing" seem to suit it better 
for you?

Truth be told, I find succinctly describing PipeWire for this 
context to be pretty difficult. It does a lot, and it's all pretty 
abstract. PipeWire is just plumbing for services people actually 
care about, and I don't think "PipeWire make media worky" is going 
to fly 😉.

> Thank you for the patch!  You may also want to add pipewire 
> backend for
> alsa:
> https://git.sr.ht/~abcdw/rde/tree/525f8c7f25783c6b8fa55f21c8e62237bc0d4a04/src/rde/features/linux.scm#L100

Thanks for the pointer. I'll try to dig through the documentation 
to see what I can do. I find the Linux sound ecosystem to be 
pretty confusing. For instance: I thought ALSA was the backend 
that PipeWire used on Linux already, so I don't understand how 
ALSA can also use PipeWire as a backend.

My use for this patch was Wayland-motivated, and everything 
outside of basic functionality (screen sharing and playing audio 
from Firefox and MPD) wasn't something I spent much time on — 
since I really don't know much about it — in the hopes that we 
could provide a minimum level of service for people and add better 
support as people needed it as time went on.

-bjc