Potato Audio Router

A high-performance, PipeWire-native audio routing application built with Qt6 and C++.

Current Status: Milestone 1 - Core PipeWire Integration

Completed Features

• ✅ Qt6 + CMake project structure
• ✅ PipeWire integration with pw_thread_loop
• ✅ Node and port discovery via registry callbacks
• ✅ Link creation and destruction
• ✅ Lock-free communication (atomics)
• ✅ CLI test application

Requirements

Build Dependencies:

• CMake >= 3.16
• Qt6 >= 6.2 (Core, Widgets)
• libpipewire >= 1.0.0
• libspa >= 0.2
• pkg-config
• C++17 compiler (GCC 9+, Clang 10+)

Runtime Dependencies:

• PipeWire service running

Building

# Install dependencies (Fedora/RHEL)
sudo dnf install qt6-qtbase-devel pipewire-devel cmake gcc-c++ pkg-config

# Install dependencies (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt install qt6-base-dev libpipewire-0.3-dev cmake build-essential pkg-config

# Install dependencies (Arch)
sudo pacman -S qt6-base pipewire cmake gcc pkg-config

# Build
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

# Run test
./potato-test

Testing

The CLI test application (potato-test) will:

1. Connect to PipeWire
2. List all discovered nodes
3. Attempt to create a link between a source and sink
4. Delete the link
5. Print a graph dump

# Make sure PipeWire is running
systemctl --user status pipewire

# Run the test
./build/potato-test

Expected output:

=== Potato Audio Router - PipeWire Integration Test ===
Version: 1.0.0
Initializing PipeWire...
PipeWire initialized successfully
Waiting for nodes to be discovered...

=== Running PipeWire Tests ===

Test 1: List all nodes
Found X nodes:
  [42] alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo
      Type: Hardware | Class: Sink
      ...

Architecture

potato-audio-router/
├── CMakeLists.txt
├── src/
│   ├── pipewire/
│   │   ├── pipewirecontroller.{h,cpp}  # Main PipeWire integration
│   │   ├── nodeinfo.{h,cpp}            # Data structures
│   │   ├── portinfo.{h,cpp}            # Port information
│   └── main_test.cpp                   # CLI test application
└── build/                              # Build artifacts

Key Components:

• PipeWireController: Main class managing PipeWire connection
  • Uses pw_thread_loop for non-blocking operation
  • Registry callbacks for node/port/link discovery
  • Thread-safe with QMutex for shared state
  • Qt signals/slots for event notification

Next Steps (Milestone 2)

• Integrate QtNodes library for visual graph editing
• Create GUI application skeleton
• Map PipeWire nodes to visual nodes
• Implement drag-and-drop connections

License

TBD