2020-06-11 09:51:32 +02:00
|
|
|
# PipeWire Overview
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PipeWire is a new low-level multimedia framework designed from scratch that
|
|
|
|
|
aims to provide
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
* graph based processing
|
|
|
|
|
* support for out-of-process processing graphs with minimal overhead
|
|
|
|
|
* flexible and extensible media format negotiation and buffer allocation
|
|
|
|
|
* Hard real-time capable plugins
|
|
|
|
|
* achieve very low-latency for both audio and video processing
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The framework is used to build a modular daemon that can be configured to:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
* be a low-latency audio server with features like pulseaudio and/or jack
|
|
|
|
|
* a video capture server that can manage hardware video capture devices and
|
|
|
|
|
provide access to them
|
|
|
|
|
* a central hub where video can be made available for other applications
|
|
|
|
|
such as the gnome-shell screencast API.
|
|
|
|
|
|
2020-06-11 13:29:30 +02:00
|
|
|
## Motivation
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Linux has no unified framework for exchanging multimedia content between
|
2020-09-14 20:00:59 +02:00
|
|
|
applications or even devices. In most cases, developers realized that
|
2020-06-11 13:29:30 +02:00
|
|
|
a user-space daemon is needed to make this possible:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
* For video content, we typically rely on the compositor to render our
|
|
|
|
|
data.
|
|
|
|
|
* For video capture, we usually go directly to the hardware devices, with
|
|
|
|
|
all security implications and inflexible routing that this brings.
|
|
|
|
|
* For consumer audio, we use PulseAudio to manage and mix multiple streams
|
|
|
|
|
from clients
|
|
|
|
|
* For Pro audio, we use JACK to manage the graph of nodes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
2021-05-06 14:55:09 +10:00
|
|
|
None of these solutions (except perhaps to some extent Wayland), however,
|
2020-06-11 13:29:30 +02:00
|
|
|
were designed to support the security features that are required when
|
2020-09-14 20:00:59 +02:00
|
|
|
dealing with flatpaks or other containerized applications. PipeWire
|
2020-06-11 13:29:30 +02:00
|
|
|
aims to solve this problem and provides a unified framework to run both
|
|
|
|
|
consumer and Pro audio as well as video capture and processing in a
|
|
|
|
|
secure way.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2020-06-11 09:51:32 +02:00
|
|
|
## Components
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Currently PipeWire ships with the following components:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
* a PipeWire daemon that implements the IPC and graph processing
|
|
|
|
|
* an example session manager that manages objects in the PipeWire
|
|
|
|
|
daemon.
|
|
|
|
|
* a set of tools to introspect and use the PipeWire daemon.
|
|
|
|
|
* a library to develop PipeWire applications and plugins.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
### The PipeWire daemon
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
### The example session manager
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
### Tools
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
### Application development
|
