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Suggestion: auto-generate one profile that exposes all available audio ports on the device

Suggestion: auto-generate one profile that exposes all available audio ports on the device. For instance, make the headphone jack and the HDMI outputs available simultaneously.

  • PipeWire version (pipewire --version): 0.3.83
  • Distribution and distribution version (PRETTY_NAME from /etc/os-release): Manjaro Linux
  • Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma 5.27
  • Kernel version (uname -r): 6.1.60-1-MANJARO

Description of Problem:

The default behavior of ACP auto-profiles is to auto-generate many profiles “by combining every input mapping with every output mapping”. This has many problems:

  • Too many profiles, at least half of them are not useful to the end-user.
  • Profiles with similar-looking and confusing names.
  • Impossible to play audio to multiple outputs simultaneously.
  • Inconsistent UI/UX when compared to changing the default device to a Bluetooth or USB device.
  • Overall poor UX.

I wrote a very comprehensive blog post about this issue (from the end-user point-of-view), including screenshots. Please read it if you want more details and more reasons. (I'm not promoting my blog, I have no ads in there and no tracking. I'm only linking it here because I think it is relevant.)

Proposed solution

Update the auto-profiles logic to generate ONE single profile with all the available inputs and outputs combined.

For backwards compatibility with existing software and users, the traditional n × m profiles can still be generated, but they could have a lower priority. Eventually, they could even go away completely (leaving only the ONE profile together with the Pro Audio profile).

Workaround

For the few end-users that are curious enough to spend a lot of time finding a solution, it is possible to create a custom ACP profile that enables all sources and sinks simultaneously. The actual steps are beyond the scope of this issue report, and are listed in my blog post. Still, I believe most end-users don't even know that a solution is possible.

Possibly related issues

Edited by Denilson Sá Maia