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pipewire: improve documentation
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* recommend running pipewire and pipewire-pulse manually in a terminal
  emulator first and then, when everything works, autostart it
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paper42 committed May 22, 2022
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28 changes: 18 additions & 10 deletions src/config/media/pipewire.md
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To use PipeWire, install the `pipewire` package.

[pipewire(1)](https://man.voidlinux.org/pipewire.1) should be started as a user.
Use the autostarting mechanism of your desktop environment or
[startx](../graphical-session/xorg.md#startx). The `pipewire` package provides
`pipewire` and `pipewire-pulse` system services, but they are not recommended
for a typical setup.
Run the pipewire command in a terminal emulator in your session.

## PulseAudio replacement
```
$ pipewire
```

PipeWire can start a PulseAudio server. While it's possible to modify
[pipewire.conf(5)](https://man.voidlinux.org/pipewire.conf.5) for auto-starting
the PulseAudio server, it's recommended to start it from the same place where
you start PipeWire by executing `pipewire-pulse`. This keeps the PipeWire
configuration file unmodified for smoother future upgrades.
When pipewire works as expected, use the autostarting mechanism of your desktop
environment or [startx](../graphical-session/xorg.md#startx). The `pipewire`
package provides `pipewire` and `pipewire-pulse` system services, but they are
not recommended for a typical setup.

## PulseAudio replacement

Before starting `pipewire-pulse`, make sure that the PulseAudio service is
[disabled](../services/index.md#disabling-services) and that no other PulseAudio
server instance is running.

Start the PulseAudio server by running `pipewire-pulse` in a terminal emulator.

To check if the replacement is working correctly, use
[pactl(1)](https://man.voidlinux.org/pactl.1) (provided by the
`pulseaudio-utils` package):
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[...]
```

Once you confirmed that `pipewire-pulse` works as expected, it's recommended to
autostart it from the same place where you start PipeWire. It is possible to
modify [pipewire.conf(5)](https://man.voidlinux.org/pipewire.conf.5) for
auto-starting the PulseAudio server, but it's not recommended keep the PipeWire
configuration file unmodified for smoother future upgrades.

## Bluetooth audio

For bluetooth audio to work, install the `libspa-bluetooth` package.
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