Bug 802489

Summary:	media-video/pipewire Misleading emerge output - pipewire-media-session is needed
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Rouven <roubro1991>
Component:	Current packages	Assignee:	Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team <gnome>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	minor	CC:	asturm, whissi
Priority:	Normal
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Rouven 2021-07-16 14:20:46 UTC

Issue:
------
The emerge output of pipewire reads:
> Both, new users and those upgrading, need to enable pipewire-media-session:
>  systemctl --user enable pipewire-media-session.service
> NOTE: This is not required when using PipeWire only for screencasting.
https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/media-video/pipewire/pipewire-0.3.30-r1.ebuild#n239

In fact the pipewire-media-session is needed for screencasting. 

Expected behavior:
------------------
It seems the note only applies to the PulseAudio explanations above and "pipewire-media-session" should be enabled by anybody.


What if pipewire-media-session is not running?
----------------------------------------------
After emerging the new stable version =media-video/pipewire-0.3.30-r1 I was not able to see the screen in a VNC session anymore. I am using systemd, wayland, Gnome 40, Mutter, gnome-remote-desktop for this. 

The appearance of the VNC session shows the default cursor and grey screen as it is common for a blank X-session.

Comment 1 Niklāvs Koļesņikovs 2021-07-17 22:12:55 UTC

I can confirm that, indeed, a session manager is required for any of the Pipewire functionalities to work. This includes screencasting/capture. The message is likely a combination of early mistake, miscommunication and wishful thinking in various proportions, since that avoids the mess with pipewire-pulse and pulseaudio conflicting with each other. Perhaps it would be best to just admit this, and honestly tell users that that one is either not using PipeWire at all or they need to replace pulseaudio with pipewire-pulse, if they want to actually use the pipewire daemon. The reality is that almost no one was using the screencasting anyway, which is also why no one noticed this until now.

I can also add since the last time this discussion was had, it's know much more certain to me that PulseAudio upstream all (or at least the major current contributors) seem to be in favor of switching over to PipeWire eventually - it's all just a matter of when PipeWire will be ready to replace PulseAudio.

Comment 2 Larry the Git Cow gentoo-dev

2021-07-23 23:10:02 UTC

The bug has been closed via the following commit(s):

https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/commit/?id=9dc8e592ea1edde9bdd55a5f090ced90ff9165e9

commit 9dc8e592ea1edde9bdd55a5f090ced90ff9165e9
Author:     Thomas Deutschmann <whissi@gentoo.org>
AuthorDate: 2021-07-23 23:09:04 +0000
Commit:     Thomas Deutschmann <whissi@gentoo.org>
CommitDate: 2021-07-23 23:09:58 +0000

    media-video/pipewire: bump to v0.3.32
    
    Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/802489
    Package-Manager: Portage-3.0.21, Repoman-3.0.3
    Signed-off-by: Thomas Deutschmann <whissi@gentoo.org>

 media-video/pipewire/Manifest               |   1 +
 media-video/pipewire/pipewire-0.3.32.ebuild | 272 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 media-video/pipewire/pipewire-9999.ebuild   |   2 -
 3 files changed, 273 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)