Xubuntu 23.04 Adds PipeWire & Flatpak to Default Install
Both PipeWire, the newer and less buggy multimedia stack, and Flatpak, the sandboxed package management, have been adopted by Ubuntu’s lightweight sibling. Other Ubuntu flavours adopted PipeWire during the 22.10 cycle, and Ubuntu MATE added native Flatpak support in its 22.04 LTS release.
In the December development update Xubuntu’s Sean Davis explains: “PipeWire has been reported to improve many of the issues users have with PulseAudio, including high CPU usage and Bluetooth connection issues. Xubuntu 23.04 adds PipeWire, WirePlumber, and the Bluetooth connection libraries.”
And having used the tech on Ubuntu (and other distros) a fair bit I have to say, anecdotal though it is, I’m yet to encounter any major hiccups, drop-outs, or codec issues.