PipeWire is a low-latency multimedia framework that is designed to replace the aging PulseAudio sound server and the JACK audio connection kit. It is used in modern Linux-based operating systems like Fedora, Arch Linux, and others.
The PipeWire Command Line Interface (pw-cli) is a command-line tool that allows users to interact with the PipeWire daemon using a terminal or shell. It provides a powerful set of commands that can be used to manage and control various aspects of the PipeWire system.
Some of the common tasks that can be performed using the pw-cli tool include listing available PipeWire clients, monitoring PipeWire streams, controlling the volume of individual streams, setting up audio input and output devices, and many others.
To use pw-cli, users need to open up a terminal and type the appropriate command followed by any necessary arguments. For example, to list all available PipeWire clients, users can type “pw-cli list-clients” in the terminal. Similarly, to monitor a specific stream, users can type “pw-cli monitor
The documentation for pw-cli provides detailed information about all the available commands and their syntax. Users can also use the built-in help command to get information about a specific command or topic. Overall, pw-cli is a powerful tool for managing and controlling the PipeWire system from the command line.
pw-cli Command Examples
1. Print all nodes (sinks and sources) along with their IDs:
# pw-cli list-objects Node
2. Print information about an object with a specific ID:
# pw-cli info {{4}}
3. Print all objects’ information:
# pw-cli info all