PipeWire

the latest framework that claims to 'fix' linux audio
existing interfaces e.g. alsa, pulse, jack are emulated
- the idea is that existing tools/apps will 'just work' without modification
- fair in the case of a well-known browser that refuses to talk to anything but pulse

Problems

in practice interface emulation is incomplete, so tools in particular are less capable than before
- this is inevitable, interfaces will only be as complete as what looks good, they will never be as powerful as the real thing
all audio hardware is grabbed on startup denying anything else from using it directly
- furthermore, nothing works over ssh (or systemd linger) unless a real login session is open
pipewire seems to be under the control of something called wireplumber, via a secret interface and with impenetrable configuration
- presumably this makes sense to certain individuals, but users want task-focused tooling

deployed at the exclusion of legacy services with migration paths missing
obsession with the way things 'should' be done at the expense of use-cases of real users
- in particular, aggressive teardown of user services after logout
criticism from real users rudely dismissed, for example https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=24830
- the users are supposed to be in control, not the machine
please do not force users to understand systemd, it is like unconsensually involving them in a kink

it is essential that users have the power to take matters into their own hands if necessary
- this is not a support burden, power users can support each other
grab a subset of hardware based on config
- this can have sensible defaults for users that don't know what hardware they have

fundamentally, i have the hardware and want to send audio to it without jumping through hoops such as lua
one instance of mpd for builtin audio, another for hdmi
- usb audio adapters each with its own mpd planned for the future
mpd runs as a regular user, and every instance should continue to be audible after logout

sudo systemctl --global disable everything with pipewire or wireplumber in its name
- this includes something called filter-chain
- check no such symlinks remain under /etc/systemd
- reboot and verify nothing with wire in its name is running, both over ssh and when logged in properly
add self to audio group
- aplay -L should work now
- probably need to crank volume back up using alsamixer