Skip to content

Audio and PipeWire

Overview

On current NixOS, PipeWire is the usual desktop audio stack: a user-session daemon with optional ALSA, PulseAudio-protocol, and JACK compatibility layers. Enable it with services.pipewire.enable = true, turn on the shims your apps need (alsa, pulse, and optionally jack), and keep the classic PulseAudio daemon off so it does not fight pipewire-pulse. WirePlumber is the default session manager when PipeWire is enabled. Desktop modules such as Plasma 6 may default PipeWire on; minimal or tiling setups still need explicit ALSA/Pulse flags. Host policy lives in configuration.nix; device firmware is separate — see Firmware and microcode.

Details

Core enable and compatibility layers. services.pipewire.enable starts PipeWire (socket-activated user units by default). services.pipewire.alsa.enable redirects ALSA clients through PipeWire; services.pipewire.pulse.enable runs the pipewire-pulse PulseAudio-protocol shim. services.pipewire.jack.enable exposes JACK-compatible libraries for DAWs and low-latency tools. On x86_64, services.pipewire.alsa.support32Bit = true builds 32-bit ALSA plugins so older or 32-bit binaries (common in games) can reach the same stack — the Steam module can set this when PipeWire ALSA is on; see Gaming: Steam and Proton.

Do not mix with classic PulseAudio. services.pipewire.audio.enable defaults to true when any of alsa.enable, pulse.enable, or jack.enable is on. When PipeWire acts as the sound server (audio.enable), NixOS asserts that services.pulseaudio.enable is false; enabling ALSA or Pulse shims with audio.enable = false also fails the module assertion. Leave the standalone PulseAudio service disabled; older configs may still mention hardware.pulseaudio.enable — confirm the current option name on search.nixos.org. Likewise, enable either PipeWire JACK emulation or services.jack.jackd.enable, not both (JACK-only PipeWire setups may keep audio.enable off).

Realtime scheduling. security.rtkit.enable = true is widely used with PipeWire so realtime threads can be granted safely. The PipeWire module also sets PAM limits for the @pipewire group; rtkit is optional but commonly recommended for desktop latency.

Session manager. services.pipewire.wireplumber.enable defaults to the same value as services.pipewire.enable. WirePlumber handles routing, default devices, and much Bluetooth/headset policy. The older pipewire-media-session path was removed upstream (NixOS 23.05+); do not re-enable it. Fine-grained WirePlumber tweaks can go through services.pipewire.wireplumber.extraConfig when needed; many installs need no changes.

Drop-in configuration. Override upstream defaults with services.pipewire.extraConfig. Sub-attrs pipewire, pipewire-pulse, client, and jack each write named drop-ins under the matching /etc/pipewire/<name>.conf.d/ tree (for example extraConfig.pipewire."10-clock" → /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/10-clock.conf). Use dotted property names as string keys where PipeWire expects flat JSON (see module examples). Latency and clock tuning belong here; values depend on hardware and workload, so treat snippets as patterns to adjust rather than fixed recommendations.

System-wide mode. services.pipewire.systemWide = true runs system units instead of per-user ones and creates a pipewire group; users or systemd services that should share the daemon need extraGroups / SupplementaryGroups membership — NixOS does not add login users automatically. Upstream and the NixOS module description discourage this for normal desktops; prefer user-session PipeWire unless you have a specific multi-user or headless reason.

Desktop defaults. services.desktopManager.plasma6.enable sets services.pipewire.enable = lib.mkDefault true but does not by itself enable every compatibility layer — you still typically set alsa.enable and pulse.enable for a full desktop. Wayland session and portal context: Wayland and compositors.

Examples

Typical desktop (PipeWire + ALSA/Pulse shims + rtkit):

{
  security.rtkit.enable = true;

  services.pulseaudio.enable = false;

  services.pipewire = {
    enable = true;
    alsa.enable = true;
    alsa.support32Bit = true; # x86_64 only; no-op elsewhere
    pulse.enable = true;
    # jack.enable = true;  # optional, for JACK clients
  };
}

Illustrative latency-related drop-ins (adjust to your hardware; not prescriptive):

services.pipewire.extraConfig = {
  pipewire."10-clock" = {
    "context.properties" = {
      "default.clock.rate" = 48000;
      "default.clock.quantum" = 1024;
    };
  };
  pipewire-pulse."10-pulse-props" = {
    "context.properties" = {
      "pulse.min.req" = "1024/48000";
    };
  };
};

See also

References