[Bug 2033440] Re: ubuntu-desktop: unnecessary hard "Depends: pipewire-audio"

[Jeremy Bícha]

We're not going to change the ubuntu-desktop metapackage to allow
switching to pulseaudio for Ubuntu 23.10.

There was a pipewire 1.0 RC (versioned as 0.3.81) release today with further JACK improvements. That version is too late for Ubuntu 23.10 but it will be in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/releases

I'm curious if pipewire will be good enough for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for
professional audio users.

It is much easier and more reliable to simply depend on pipewire-audio,
especially since we need to upgrade people from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS which
had pulseaudio as default. Trying to allow people to intentionally opt
out also means that people can accidentally end up with the option that
is not our recommended audio server.

** Tags removed: rls-mm-incoming
** Tags added: rls-mm-notfixing

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2033440

Title:
  ubuntu-desktop: unnecessary hard "Depends: pipewire-audio"

Status in ubuntu-meta package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in ubuntu-meta source package in Lunar:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  Recommend demoting pipewire-audio from Depends: to Recommends:.

  Reason: While it's not ideal, the Ubuntu Desktop can still function on
  the pulseaudio backend rather than using the direct pipewire-alsa
  backend which conflicts with the pulseaudio package. This would help
  people who wish to have a more traditional JACK setup that is bridged
  to pulseaudio. Right now, this setup is incompatible.

  --------
  Original description:

  I have installed successfully the standard Ubuntu 23.04 (on a 500 GB
  external USB drive). Immediately after the installation, I have also
  installed with apt the "ubuntustudio-installer" package.

  In the dialog provided by the ubuntustudio-installer, I have selected
  the following metapackages:

  - linux-lowlatency
  - ubuntustudio-lowlatency-settings
  - ubuntustudio-performance-tweaks
  - ubuntustudio-audio
  - ubuntu-pulseaudio-config

  and pressed "Modify installed Package Selection"

  After a while a "qaptbatch" dialog has appeared with title

  "Commit Error"

  and message

  "An error occurred while applying changes"

  So the installation has failed. Then I have tried to manually install
  each metapackage in the list above with apt and every package was
  installed successfully.

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