pipewire

[ahop...@googlemail.com]

Hi Linux users,

There have been a number of reports of audio issues on linux when pipewire is being used,

I managed to replicate some of them and this fixes it for me.

https://www.sparksdr.com/download/SparkSDR.2.0.989.linux-x64.deb
https://www.sparksdr.com/download/SparkSDR.2.0.989.linux-x64.rpm
https://www.sparksdr.com/download/SparkSDR.2.0.989.linux-arm64.deb

This version turns off some of the portaudio features that try to minimise latency. It is not an ideal solution and I don't know if it will work for others.  There are a number of reports of Audacity also having problems with pipewire and it uses portaudio.  The best long term solution is probably for me to use pipewire directly but that won't happen over night.

Please let me know if it works.

This also fixes a bug that made the waterfall speed upif the window was resized.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Steven Sostrom]

I don't see much improvement in SparkSDR.2.0.989 on my Raspberry Pi 5.

On Ubuntu 24.04.1, the default and pulse devices are garbled and choppy. hdmi does not work.

hdmi only works if it was selected before SparkSDR starts. I started it with pulse selected and it was choppy.
SparkSDR still hangs when I try to close it.
Sometimes hdmi stops working until after a restart.

----Steve

[ahop...@googlemail.com]

Hi

here is a test version that uses pipewire directly

https://www.sparksdr.com/download/SparkSDR.2.0.990.linux-arm64.deb

please let me know how it works.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Steven Sostrom]

On a RPI 5 running Raspberry Pi OS and also Ubuntu, there is only one audio device per hardware interface and they work.

On DietPi without Pipewire, SparkSDR does not run.

----Steve

[ahop...@googlemail.com]

Hi,

thanks for testing, sounds promising.

I made a bit of a guess as to what nodes to show in the device lists, I currently only show those with media.class as Audio/Sink or Audio/Source, Is there anything particular missing?

I need to think how to distribute portaudio and pipewire versions, in the short term I might create separate debs, this also has the advantage of reducing the dependencies.

I shall have a look at creating auto devices as virtual audio cables.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Steven Sostrom]

I tried on on a RPI 4 with Raspberry Pi OS.

It works and there is an additional device selection for the analog headphone jack, so there is a device selection for all of the hardware devices.

I started a virtual audio cable and it is not present, so there should be support for that.

It is interesting that the SparkSDR audio does appear in the Pulse Audio control panel.

More debs is more work for you and more confusion for the average user who doesn't know what Pipewire is.

Apparently, it would be awkward to handle both in one application.

----Steve

[Jim]

Since SparkSDR 2.0.975 audio is clean on Raspberry OS Bookworm with PipeWire, I wonder if the distorted audio on Ubuntu 24.04 is related to the Linux kernel or PipeWire version.

Jim N7IHQ

[Steven Sostrom]

SparkSDR.2.0.990 works for me on ubuntu-24.04 with Pipewire.