I finally want to switch from pulseaudio to pipewire, but it seems cinnamon-settings-daemon (and therefore cinnamon) depends on pulseaudio.
I also found this old post, but it has no answers: Need a guide on how NOT to use Pulseaudio on Manjaro Cinnamon
So is there no chance to switch (right now)?
But it surprises me, because if I am correct Linux Mint already uses pipewire by default.
From what I can see in the dependencies of cinnamon-settings-daemon, it requires pulse-native-provider, which is provided by the pipewire-pulse package:
❯ pamac info cinnamon-settings-daemon
Name : cinnamon-settings-daemon
Version : 6.6.4-1
Description : Settings daemon for Cinnamon
URL : https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-settings-daemon
Licenses : GPL-2.0-or-later AND LGPL-2.0-or-later
Repository : extra
Installed Size : 1.9 MB
Groups : --
Depends On : cairo cinnamon-desktop dconf fontconfig gdk-pixbuf2
glib2 glibc gtk3 hicolor-icon-theme lcms2
libcanberra-pulse libgcc libcolord libcups libgudev
libnotify libwacom libx11 libxext libxi nspr nss pango
polkit pulse-native-provider systemd-libs upower
Optional Dependencies : cinnamon-translations: i18n
Provides : --
Replaces : --
Conflicts With : --
Packager : Antonio Rojas <arojas@archlinux.org>
Build Date : Sat 02 May 2026 20:38:45
Validated By : MD5 Sum SHA-256 Sum Signature
❯ pamac info pipewire-pulse
Name : pipewire-pulse
Version : 1:1.6.6-1
Description : Low-latency audio/video router and processor -
PulseAudio replacement
URL : https://pipewire.org
Licenses : MIT
Repository : extra
Installed Size : 579.3 kB
Groups : --
Depends On : libpipewire=1:1.6.6-1 libpipewire-0.3.so=0-64
pipewire-audio=1:1.6.6-1 pipewire=1:1.6.6-1 avahi
libavahi-client.so=3-64 libavahi-common.so=3-64 dbus
libdbus-1.so=3-64 dconf glib2 libglib-2.0.so=0-64
libgobject-2.0.so=0-64 libgio-2.0.so=0-64 glibc libgcc
libpulse libpulse.so=0-64 pipewire-session-manager
Optional Dependencies : --
Required By : manjaro-pipewire pavucontrol-qt plasma-pa
Optional For : libpulse manjaro-bluetooth pipewire
Provides : pulse-native-provider
Replaces : --
Conflicts With : pulseaudio
Packager : David Runge <dvzrv@archlinux.org>
Build Date : Wed 27 May 2026 00:23:41
Install Date : Fri 29 May 2026 17:27:40
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
Validated By : Signature
Backup files : --
So you should have no issues replacing pulseaudio with pipewire-pulse. You should also install the manjaro-pipewire meta-package to replace the manjaro-pulse meta-package.
cinnamon-settings-daemon used to depend on pulseaudio-alsa but dependency was changed to pulse-native-provider to use either PulseAudio or PipeWire
6.0.0-2: move pulseaudio dep to pulse-native-provider (a74cf09f) · Commits · Archlinux · cinnamon-settings-daemon
authored 4 Dec 2023 by Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig)PKGBUILD
- pulseaudio-alsa upower) + pulse-native-provider upower)
The only problem with this is that it installs pulse-native-provider which if your using pipewire is niot needed. Perhaps pipewire-pulse sholud remove it?
pulse-native-provider is provided by either pulseaudio or pipewire-pulse
$ pamac info pulseaudio
Name : pulseaudio
Provides : pulse-native-provider
Conflicts With : pipewire-pulse
$ pamac info pipewire-pulse
Name : pipewire-pulse
Provides : pulse-native-provider
Conflicts With : pulseaudio
This allows users to Install manjaro-pipewire metapackage to replace pulseaudio with pipewire-pulse
$ pamac info manjaro-pipewire
Name : manjaro-pipewire
Version : 20231009-1
Description : Manjaro meta package for complete PipeWire support.
Depends On : gst-plugin-pipewire pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse
Optional Dependencies : easyeffects: advanced equalizer and effects
pipewire-jack: Jack support
pipewire-v4l2: V4L2 interceptor
pipewire-x11-bell: X11 bell
pipewire-zeroconf: Zeroconf support
realtime-privileges: Realtime privileges for users [Installed]
Conflicts With : manjaro-pulse pulseaudio-equalizer pulseaudio-jack pulseaudio-lirc pulseaudio-rtp
pulseaudio-zeroconf
Or install manjaro-pulse metapackage to replace pipewire-pulse with pulseaudio
I agree but my comment is despite this pulse-native-provider is still installed. And it is not needed.
I am still using PulseAudio and cannot install this package
Error: Failed to prepare transaction:
could not satisfy dependencies:
- removing pulseaudio breaks dependency 'pulseaudio=17.0+r98+gb096704c0-1' required by pulseaudio-jack
and manjaro-pipewire metapackage does not install this package
To install (7):
pipewire-audio 1:1.6.6-1 (Required By: manjaro-pipewire) extra
wireplumber 0.5.14-1 (Required By: manjaro-pipewire) extra 283.3 kB
pipewire-session-manager 1:1.6.6-1 (Required By: manjaro-pipewire) extra
gst-plugin-pipewire 1:1.6.6-1 (Required By: manjaro-pipewire) extra
pipewire-alsa 1:1.6.6-1 (Required By: manjaro-pipewire) extra 5.4 kB
pipewire-pulse 1:1.6.6-1 (Required By: manjaro-pipewire) extra 223.0 kB
manjaro-pipewire 20231009-1 extra 24.1 kB
To remove (2):
pulseaudio-jack 17.0+r98+gb096704c0-1 (Conflicts With: manjaro-pipewire) extra
pulseaudio 17.0+r98+gb096704c0-1 (Conflicts With: pipewire-pulse) extra
Cinnamon ISOs include PipeWire as default multimedia server but do not include pulse-native-provider
manjaro-cinnamon-25.0.3-250609-linux612.iso
pipewire 1:1.4.2-1 pipewire-alsa 1:1.4.2-1 pipewire-audio 1:1.4.2-1 pipewire-pulse 1:1.4.2-1 pipewire-session-manager 1:1.4.2-1 wireplumber 0.5.8-1
pulse-native-provider is an empty package, as the functions of pulse-native-provider are now provided by pipewire-pulse &/or pulseaudio. I just downloaded the package & extracted it - it contains no installable files:
❯ ls -lA /tmp/pulse-native-provider-1_1.6.6-1-x86_64.pkg/
total 24
-rw-r--r-- 1 scotty scotty 12689 May 27 00:23 .BUILDINFO
-rw-r--r-- 1 scotty scotty 214 May 27 00:23 .MTREE
-rw-r--r-- 1 scotty scotty 1367 May 27 00:23 .PKGINFO
I don’t have the standalone pulse-native-provider package installed on my system due to it already being provided by pipewire-pulse.
Found itt is in cinnamon-settings-daemon perhaps it could be removed or made opitinal?
@robin0800 I think you’re misunderstanding what pulse-native-provider is. It’s just a virtual package. Both pulseaudio and pipewire-pulse provide it, so you’ll have one or the other installed. Pick one. As you already know, cinnamon-settings-daemon depends on it and that is not going to change.