Pipewire vs jackd dependencies under Ubuntu/Mint

[VanHammen]

I'm starting to work with pipewire on Ubuntu Noble (Mint Wilma), I was able to install and run Ardour (1:8.4.0+ds1-2ubuntu8), I notice this package has no direct dependency on jackd but it still runs fine under PW.

Perhaps it is using the jack libs that are installed by the pipewire-jack packages under /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pipewire-0.3/jack/

Now I'd like to install qtractor (0.9.39-1build3) but it does have a jackd dependency and wants to install either jackd or jackd2. I can use dpkg to force a qtractor install without the dependencies and then hopefully it'll find the jacklibs on the ld path and just work? I see a lot of other audio packages also with the jackd dependency

Before I start experimenting with an otherwise solid system I wonder how other people are dealing with these packaging issues of "jack as required dependency but not really because pipewire-jack is already installed"

Also what happens if I accidentally install jackd (or jackd2) on a system configured with pipewire?

[novalix]

First things first.

Also what happens if I accidentally install jackd (or jackd2) on a system configured with pipewire?

Nothing really. Installed accidentally or not a jack daemon won 't run if you don 't start it explicitly.

The problem with ardour might be that it does start a jack daemon if that is the chosen backend and it doesn 't "see" an already running jack daemon unless you start it wrapped in the "pw-jack" command explicitly.

Regarding the nomenclature: in the debian packaging "jackd" is a meta-package which contains no actual code itself but holds a dependency to either "jackd2" or "jackd1" in that order.

There exists a bug report against jackd already to add "pipewire-jack" to the dependency list of the package but the maintainers seem to be a bit sleepy.

[VanHammen]

There exists a bug report against jackd already to add "pipewire-jack" to the dependency list of the package but the maintainers seem to be a bit sleepy.

Thank you @novalix that bug report says it better than I could, would be great if the Debian folks would fix that.

Options in the meantime to install apps with the jackd dependency:

• override dependencies via dkpg - could lead to a packaging mess
• install jackd2 but leave it inactive and maybe set permissions so it doesn't auto-start

I think I'll try the latter first