Removing Steam also removes PipeWire.

[RyanArif]

Distribution (run cat /etc/os-release):
NAME="Pop!_OS"
VERSION="22.04 LTS"
ID=pop
ID_LIKE="ubuntu debian"
PRETTY_NAME="Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS"
VERSION_ID="22.04"
HOME_URL="https://pop.system76.com"
SUPPORT_URL="https://support.system76.com"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/pop-os/pop/issues"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://system76.com/privacy"
VERSION_CODENAME=jammy
UBUNTU_CODENAME=jammy
LOGO=distributor-logo-pop-os

Related Application and/or Package Version (run apt policy $PACKAGE NAME):
steam
steam:i386:
Installed: 1:1.0.0.74-1pop1~1644936575~22.04~6d77918
Candidate: 1:1.0.0.74-1pop1~1644936575~22.04~6d77918
Version table:
1:1.0.0.74-1ubuntu2 500
500 http://apt.pop-os.org/ubuntu jammy/multiverse i386 Packages
*** 1:1.0.0.74-1pop1~1644936575~22.04~6d77918 1001
1001 http://apt.pop-os.org/release jammy/main i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Issue/Bug Description:

When steam is uninstalled, pipewire is uninstalled.
From apt remove steam,
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
libcanberra0:i386 libegl-mesa0:i386 libegl1:i386 libpipewire-0.3-0:i386
libpipewire-0.3-modules:i386 libspa-0.2-avb:i386 libspa-0.2-modules:i386
libtdb1:i386 libvorbisfile3:i386 libwebrtc-audio-processing1:i386
pipewire:i386

While steam does depend on certain 32 bit packages and libraries, the autoremoval of these packages will break pipewire and force you to reinstall pipewire and re-enable the service. This is such a huge pain in the butt.

Steps to reproduce (if you know):

1. apt install steam
2. apt remove steam
3. Wow! pipewire breaks!

Expected behavior:
Pipewire does not uninstall

Other Notes:
While I prefer to use flatpak to handle steam, as I don't believe any video games require access to all of my files and what have you, I do like to use a steam controller. I discovered this issue when installing steam-devices, which also installs steam. It should not also install steam, as steam-devices is a package that is meant to be installed in place of steam, should you want to use various steam devices (such as the steam controller) without installing steam on the system. This is where I discovered this bug - after installing steam-devices, then removing steam, I broke my audio.

[pfunzl]

I can confirm I had the exact same thing happen. I uninstalled the .deb version of steam yesterday to only have the flatpak installed. This broke pipewire and also Bluetooth would not get enabled regardless of what I tried. I got pipewire running again with:

sudo apt reinstall pipewire pipewire-bin pipewire-pulse
systemctl --user --now enable pipewire pipewire-pulse

Still my Bluetooth was not fixed. Found your post here, reinstalled the .deb version of steam, instantly Bluetooth came back to life.

Thank your for posting this.

[RyanArif]

I can confirm I had the exact same thing happen. I uninstalled the .deb version of steam yesterday to only have the flatpak installed. This broke pipewire and also Bluetooth would not get enabled regardless of what I tried. I got pipewire running again with:

sudo apt reinstall pipewire pipewire-bin pipewire-pulse
systemctl --user --now enable pipewire pipewire-pulse

Still my Bluetooth was not fixed. Found your post here, reinstalled the .deb version of steam, instantly Bluetooth came back to life.

Thank your for posting this.

Yup, this is the exact fix I had to apply, although I didn't notice anything going wonky with my bluetooth (but since pipewire was uninstalled, I'm sure the bluetooth was broken as the pulse audio bluetooth functionality is included with pipewire-pulse, a then busted package)

I hope the Pop!_OS team can get this fixed quickly, I usually recommend Pop! to my friends who want to get their feet wet with Linux, as the baked in nvidia drivers and Ubuntu-derivative make it a solid first choice.

[LethalManBoob]

is this still a thing?

[leviport]

I don't think so. I'll close it for now. We can reopen it later if we need to.

[Icelain]

Can confirm, this is still a thing.

[leviport]

I've not seen it, but I'll reopen.