A graphical and command-line toolset for tuning PipeWire and JACK audio settings on Fedora Jam (and any Fedora spin). Designed for musicians, engineers, and anyone who needs reliable low-latency audio.
The fedorajam-audio-config GUI walks you through a set of configuration tasks via a
simple menu:
jack.show-monitor — expose the JACK Monitor client and its portsjack.merge-monitor — merge capture and monitor ports on the same device clientjack.show-midi — expose JACK MIDI clients and portsjack.short-name — use shorter names for device clientsallow, fail-external, ignore-external, fail-all, ignore-all).Settings are written to ~/.config/pipewire/jack.conf.d/fedorajam.conf and applied
immediately by restarting the relevant PipeWire services.
Manage real-time–friendly kernel parameters written to
/etc/default/grub.d/fedorajam.cfg (applied via grub2-mkconfig with pkexec):
| Parameter | Effect |
|---|---|
preempt=full |
Fully preemptible kernel — best for low-latency workloads |
threadirqs |
Forces interrupt handlers into threaded context, reducing xruns |
rcu_nocbs=all |
Offloads RCU callbacks to dedicated threads — improves RT performance |
nohz_full=all |
Reduces timer noise for latency-critical workloads |
A reboot is required for these changes to take effect.
Start or stop a stereo PipeWire dummy audio sink/source for use cases where you want to route audio from an application without sending it to physical outputs (e.g. routing a DAW or music app into another mixer or recorder). You can also enable or disable the dummy device automatically at login via the associated systemd user service.
Configure a FireWire audio interface to work with PipeWire via the FFADO library:
- Detects connected FireWire devices using ffado-test.
- Prompts to install the ffado / libffado packages if they are not present.
- Select device, buffer size, and sample rate; writes a PipeWire context configuration
and restarts PipeWire automatically.
- Existing configurations can be reconfigured or removed.
The GUI automatically selects the appropriate widget toolkit based on the running desktop:
| Desktop | Toolkit |
|---|---|
| KDE Plasma, LXQt | Qt 6 (PyQt6) |
| GNOME, Xfce, MATE, Budgie, Cinnamon, Sway, i3, LXDE, … | GTK 4 + libadwaita (PyGObject) |
If the preferred toolkit is unavailable, the other is tried automatically.
fedorajam-audio-config (GUI)Launch from your desktop application menu or from a terminal:
fedorajam-audio-config
Internal CLI sub-commands (used by systemd services, not normally called directly):
| Sub-command | Purpose |
|---|---|
startup |
Apply saved JACK configuration at session start |
dummystart |
Load the dummy audio module into PipeWire |
dummystop |
Unload the dummy audio module |
writeparams [param …] |
Write selected kernel params to the GRUB drop-in |
fedorajam-pwjack-config (command-line)A root-level helper that writes /etc/profile.d/fedorajam-pwjack.sh, setting the
system-wide default PipeWire quantum and sample rate:
sudo fedorajam-pwjack-config BUFFERSIZE SAMPLERATE
Valid values:
| Argument | Accepted values |
|---|---|
BUFFERSIZE |
16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096 |
SAMPLERATE |
22050, 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 192000 |
Example:
sudo fedorajam-pwjack-config 1024 48000
Log out and back in for the environment change to take effect. The GUI defers to this file for its "system default" quantum display.
Two user-session services are installed and preset to start automatically:
| Unit | Description |
|---|---|
fedorajam-pwconfig-start.service |
Runs fedorajam-audio-config startup after PipeWire starts; applies saved JACK settings |
fedorajam-dummy-audio.service |
Manages the dummy audio device; started/stopped by the GUI |
Both units are managed via systemctl --user.
| Package | Purpose |
|---|---|
pipewire, pipewire-utils |
Audio server and utilities |
pulseaudio-utils |
pactl used for dummy device management |
python3 >= 3.9 |
Runtime for all Python tools |
python3-gobject |
GTK 4 UI (on GNOME and other GTK desktops) |
python3-PyQt6 |
Qt 6 UI (on KDE Plasma and LXQt) |
polkit |
Privilege escalation for GRUB / kernel parameter changes |
grub2-common, bash |
Boot parameter management |
At least one of python3-gobject or python3-PyQt6 must be present.
Install the pre-built RPM (noarch):
sudo dnf install ./fedora-jam-audio-config-<version>.noarch.rpm
The %post scriptlet automatically runs fedorajam-pwjack-config 1024 48000 to write
an initial quantum profile if one does not already exist.
| Path | Description |
|---|---|
/usr/bin/fedorajam-audio-config |
Graphical configuration tool |
/usr/sbin/fedorajam-pwjack-config |
System quantum/sample-rate helper |
/usr/share/fedorajam-audio-config/ |
Python application package |
/usr/lib/systemd/user/*.service |
User session services |
/usr/lib/systemd/user-preset/90_fedorajam-pwconfig-start.preset |
Service preset |
/usr/share/applications/fedorajam-audio-config.desktop |
Desktop entry |
/usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/fedorajam-audio-config.mo |
Translations |
/usr/share/man/man1/ |
Man pages for both tools |
Translations are managed in the po/ directory using standard GNU gettext. To add or
update a translation, edit the appropriate .po file and run make in po/.
Currently translated: Arabic, Czech, German, Spanish, Estonian, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Dutch, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Turkish, Ukrainian, Simplified Chinese.
systemctl --user restart fedorajam-pwconfig-start.service/etc/profile.d/fedorajam-pwjack.sh contains
the expected PIPEWIRE_QUANTUM value.~/.config/pipewire/jack.conf.d/fedorajam.conf./etc/default/grub.d/fedorajam.cfg and confirm
grub2-mkconfig was run successfully (the GUI does this automatically via pkexec).GPL-2.0-or-later — see the COPYING file for the full text.
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