Audio Devices

🔊 Audio Devices Guide

HorneroConfig ships a PipeWire-first audio stack driven by the Quickshell Audio service, with pamixer and playerctl as the CLI layer.

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🧱 The Stack

Layer	Component	Role
Server	PipeWire	Low-latency capture/playback, Bluetooth (bluez)
Session manager	WirePlumber	Device routing and profiles
Shell	Quickshell services/Audio	Volume, mute, devices, OSD popouts
CLI	pamixer, pactl, playerctl	Scripted control (media keybinds)

Tip

dots dependencies verifies PipeWire is installed as part of the stack.

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⌨️ Keybinds (Media Keys)

Keys	Action
XF86AudioRaiseVolume	Volume +5%
XF86AudioLowerVolume	Volume -5%
XF86AudioMute	Mute output
XF86AudioMicMute	Mute microphone
XF86AudioPlay/Pause/Next/Prev	MPRIS via playerctl

These map to pamixer / playerctl calls in hyprland.conf.d/keybindings.conf — edit them with chezmoi edit ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf.d/keybindings.conf.

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🖥️ Selecting Devices

• Bar: click the speaker status icon → the audio popout lists every output/input device; pick one and drag the volume slider
• Click "Open settings" in that popout → detaches the full audio panel
• CLI:

pactl list sinks short              # outputs
pactl set-default-sink <name>       # switch default
pamixer --list-sources              # microphones
pamixer --default-source -i 10      # mic +10%

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🎚️ OSD Behaviour

Volume/mic/brightness changes raise the on-screen display (modules/osd) automatically; it hides after Config.osd.hideDelay (configurable in the control center → On-Screen Display).

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🌈 Extras

• The cava visualizer (background.visualiser) feeds from the same PipeWire graph — enable it per preset or via dots-quickshell config set background.visualiser.enabled true
• Now Playing widgets (dashboard Media tab, lockscreen) read MPRIS metadata through playerctl

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🆘 Troubleshooting

• No sound after suspend: systemctl --user restart wireplumber
• Bluetooth headphones missing: ensure bluez + bluez-utils (the bluetooth install fragment covers them) and rfkill unblock bluetooth
• Device not defaulting: check pactl get-default-sink vs your Desktop profile in the audio popout