Not a high bar to pass. Ubuntu installed on a dead rat's brain would run better than Windows11 on anything.

pipewire is so cool! It's so easy to set it up to sling to snapcast!

I had issues with Bluetooth Audio once. 18 years ago on my first ever install on an IBM ThinkPad 600E that I had bought used with a USB Bluetooth dongle.

I remember using my Bluetooth headset on my windows 10 laptop would completely freeze the settings and volume menus... It was a really powerful laptop too... So bizarre

I guess you've just been lucky.

I would make fun of you for using toslink but eARC is such a scam that I don't know why they didn't just bother to upgrade toslink anyway.

I think they're lying when they say it can't handle the bandwidth. It's a fricken fiber optic cable, just bump the transmitter.

I'm sure Linux is great with headphones too, but is there really a widespread issue with them in Windows?

Obviously it's not difficult to "recognise" a headset plugged into the 3.5mm jack, so I'm presuming the author means Bluetooth.

In general, I've been very impressed with the improved audio system and controls between Win10 & 11, it needed a big upgrade and we got it. Similarly, Bluetooth UI and ease of use has shot up too. The old Bluetooth UI was awful.

I use various Bluetooth audio devices daily, as well as 3.5mm audio stuff, and have various needs for routing and altering audio with virtual audio cables, etc, and it all works flawlessly for me.

I'm just one person though, not really a great sample size!

Anyway, I'm surprised to hear there's a widespread issue with Bluetooth audio in Windows 11, given how standardised and widely used everything is these days. You'd think that'd be ironed out reasonably quickly, lest hundreds of millions of people struggle :-(

The fun part about windows is you don’t know if it’s breaking because of the coke code from the 80’s or the vibe code from the ‘20s.

mint occasionally loses all sound devices on my media pc, but that's usually fixed with a reboot. and easy effects caused random sound lags, so i have to live without eq.

Admitely, my cheap bluetooth in-ear manages to crash bluetoothd now and then.

I've definitely had some on and off audio issues, nothing crazy usually solved by unplugging and replugging in the device.

You forgot the Ballmer Peak code from the 00's

Idk, this is just a personal experience meme

That's why.

Its 'our' pc now, not 'your' pc.

Oh, yeah, cocaïne fuelled developers bouncing around. I'd forgotten about those.

the issue for me comes when I want to use the same headphones on more than one device and windows has suddenly never met this fellow in its life before

If you've ever had non-sucky audio + microphone from bluetooth headphones I'd love to know the brand.

I have two nice speakers in my office, that have to be connected using aux. My shitty Windows work laptop only has USB-C, so the aux is plugged into a little converter thingy. It sometimes crashes the fuck out, and plays white noise at max volume until replugged. Tried the same setup from my private laptop running NixOS. Absolutely no issues at all.

I remember when I used to have audio problems all the time, including headphones literally just not even working somehow. Then I switched to Linux.

Or you've just been unlucky.

Agreed, it was the next step from pulseaudio. To say it wasnt problematic is incorrect, as it had many problems and needed a lot of manual intervention.

Nowadays, pipewire appears alot more stable, even with the compatibility layers for when stuff uses pulseaudio.

Why is eARC a scam? Doesn’t it carry higher audio bitrates than optical?

The most widespread issue with headphones on Windows is that you'd be having Windows.

Unfortunately I do have headphone issues with Linux, but it's just a bit of silence when unpausing VLC.

Over the years, I've just come to accept that, no matter the OS, there are just some things computers suck at. Working with hardware is one of them.

Bluetooth have been kinda crap but also HDMI audio devices have been buggy. Analog in/out (3.5mm) has always worked for me.

On Windows audio cuts out every so often.

Also an update broke a driver a bit ago and I had to edit the registry to fix it.

Linux is my comfort OS, everything just works.

90s moment

Ah yes, let's stop sexism with sexism

Linux is my comfort OS, everything just works.

This exactly!

People who remember trying Linux 20 years ago look at me like I'm crazy. But Linux is so cozy, now!

Are you using pulseaudio? Could be module suspend on idle (link is blocked for me, might work for you):
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documentation/User/Modules/#module-suspend-on-idle

The fuck of wanky-ass Windows installs are you guys running that you'd have audio issues?

Let me guess, you guys ran some weird script you found online that promised to delete all the anti-privacy features without checking what it actually did, and fucked up the whole OS so you can cirklejerk around on Linux forums complaining about Windows?

Want to bet if you did a fresh install of Windows without all the workarounds you seem to need, it will just work?

Dell laptop at a fortune 500. They locked USB and audio down hard on these laptops. Flahsdrives don't work unless you get an approved dongle. Wired headphones only allow either the mic or headphone output to be working, never both. So I end up using the laptop mic and headphone output.

But Bluetooth is fair game and everything works just fine there 🙃

When you want to route your audio a certain way (let’s say audio recording/production or such)

Windows: oh sure, you just gotta download a shitty proprietary driver/program, get that to talk to your daw and from there on it’s…let’s hope it does what you wanna do.

Linux: You want routing options? Have some …(ALL the options)

It's very common to have audio issues, in fact. Pipewire is seen as a golden age by many.

[sobbing] I don't know what the fuck snapcast is, I just want sound to work!

I will never forgive him and Fedora for rolling it out when it was a half-baked piece of shit though.

Oof, so it wasn't JUST a problem is in the chair situation for me. I really thought that it was simply me being too inept at the time to, figure it out immediately when on Windows. I'd eventually get it to work but that would require restoring a backup of when audio worked previously. As I didn't trust sketchy files, my experience having to fix our family PC due to...My parents downloading whatever looked cool, only for it to fill our hard drive with porn and slowing down the PC with too many processes that were collecting data or worse. ROFL

As someone that is using RTP to send audio from and to different Linux computers, this is unfortunately an option that is getting more difficult to use as time passes. A few years ago when pulseaudio was dominating, it was trivial to just tick a few boxes, enable RTP, see a lit of devices in pasystray, and choose it with a few clicks. Now since pipewire, this is no longer possible. Sure, RTP still works, but using the command line is now mandatory, as all the GUI options have disappeared.

I still find myself reinstalling pulseaudio on most of my computers running Linux because I need RTP audio and it's disappointing that it's getting harder and harder to get it to work on Linux.

The entire volume control and Bluetooth connection management in Windows is an insane pile of garbage that seems deliberately hard to navigate and frequently doesn't work for no apparent reason. Which is wild because they could have just not changed it at all since it used to be fine.

I had a Samsung TV and Samsung home theater in a box as my first 4k setup. The last update to the TV broke eARC.

Just wanted to throw out at every opportunity why I will not buy a Samsung anything.

Lol we're all talking about the locked down shit windows laptops work provides. Mine is totally fine except audio sounds like shit. You can understand speech just fine but music sounds like it's coming through a tin can with a string.

Developers Developers Developers Developers

Linux revoked my mic permissions in the middle of a call today, on Google Meet. Happened before on Zoom.

I have not root-caused it to see if there was flaky hardware or what.

Most machines have issues with the headset headphones.

Windows, Mac, Linux.

Many headphones that are headsets will pair as a dual device with the crappy two way audio that sounds like you just connected to your cars Bluetooth from 2005x

Ok, this prompted me to root-cause the issue. A bad cable between laptop and USB dock seems most likely. Hardware issue, not Linux!

My team mate at work has an issue with his headphones at least a couple times a week. We'll be talking and his mic cuts out, or he can't hear anymore, or whatever. Windows 11 laptop.

I put fedora on my work laptop and never have issues, except with teams. Stupid microslop horseshit.

Yeah they now expect you to use their native protocol for sharing audio on the network.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire#Sharing_audio_devices_with_computers_on_the_network

I've never used pasystray. But I regularly use qpwgraph now since I switched to pipe wire. It's similar to the graph from qjackctl.

I’m pretty sure working with software is the other.