jack-bridge - System wide ALSA + JACK Audio & Bluetooth with GUI No systemd, pulseaudio or pipewire

jack-bridge provides a complete, lightweight audio stack for Debian-based Linux systems using JACK and ALSA — without systemd, PulseAudio, or PipeWire. Perfect for users who want minimal dependencies and maximum control.

Features

Alsa Sound Connect GUI - Original mixer and eq GUI by mrgreenjeans AlsaTune GUI (SourceForge)

JACK Audio Connection Kit - Professional audio server (JACK Audio Connection Kit)

BlueALSA - Bluetooth audio ALSA backend by Arkadiusz Bokowy (BlueALSA)

QjackCtl - JACK Audio Connection Kit GUI by Rui Nuno Capela (QjackCtl)

BlueZ - Official Linux Bluetooth stack (BlueZ)

ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA)

Huge thanks to all these great devs.

This program is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY use at your own risk. Read the licence. Jack-bridge code generated by chat bots.

Known issues. If using an external usb audio interface or any usb midi hardware (drums, keyboards etc) they can override jack-bridge if plugged in on boot. If this happens plug them in after booting. Or select USB in the devices section of the GUI before shutting down. Also pressing setup in the qjackctl GUI tends to crash unless you have opened graph or messages first.

Professional audio control interface Alsa Sound Connect (mxeq) with:

• Dynamic mixer controls - Automatically shows hardware controls for active device (Internal/USB/HDMI/BLUETOOTH)
• Built-in recorder - Record in mono/stereo at 44.1kHz or 48kHz, saves to ~/Music
• Bluetooth panel - Scan, pair, trust, connect devices with visual feedback
• Device switching - Change output between Internal/USB/HDMI/Bluetooth without restarting JACK

🔊 Audio Routing

• ALSA → JACK pipeline - All ALSA apps route through JACK, without systemd, PulseAudio, or PipeWire
• Multi-device support - Seamlessly switch between internal, USB, HDMI, and Bluetooth outputs
• Persistent bridge ports - USB/HDMI/Bluetooth ports spawned on-demand
• Capture-aware - Records from JACK's system:capture system:midi_capture ports and custom usb_in:capture for external audio interface.
• Qjackctl Graph - Visually route audio to and from multiple apps and sources using graph in qjackctl.

🎵 Bluetooth Audio Integration

• BlueZ + BlueALSA - Full A2DP/HFP/HSP support without PulseAudio/PipeWire
• GUI controls - Scan, pair, trust, connect, and remove devices
• On-demand spawning - Bluetooth ports created only when needed (prevents boot errors)
• Device state tracking - Buttons auto-enable based on connection status

⚙️ System Integration

• SysV init scripts - Clean startup/shutdown (no systemd required)
• Graceful shutdown - Daemons stop cleanly on reboot/shutdown (still need to fix warnings)
• Auto-detection - Finds audio devices, detects users automatically
• Non-root operation - GUI runs as regular user with polkit for Bluetooth

Requirements

Debian-based distributions Without systemd. Using sysVinit. Testing done on Devuan 5 XFCE and Mate Desktop Environments.

Recommended: Remove PulseAudio and PipeWire before installation to avoid conflicts. Removing PulseAudio is not required as the installer Disables PulseAudio autospawn system-wide and if you need pulseaudio for steam games you can start and stop pulseaudio as needed in a terminal with pulseaudio --start and pulseaudio --kill. As it is now steams version of proton does not support jack and steams runtime would have to be rebuilt as a custom binary and everytime there is an upgrade it would stop working. Until I can figure something out unfortunatly jack-bridge does not work with steam. If you use wine for gaming jack-bridge works fine.

Installation

Quick Install

Download jack-bridge-20260120.tar.gz from releases on GitHub. Then:

tar -xf jack-bridge-20260120.tar.gz

cd jack-bridge-20260120

sudo sh contrib/install.sh

sudo reboot

Or clone the repository:

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/rations/jack-bridge.git

cd jack-bridge

sudo apt update

sudo sh contrib/install.sh

sudo reboot

What Gets Installed

The installer will:
1. Install required packages (jackd, alsa-utils, bluez, etc.)
2. Configure ALSA → JACK routing
3. Install SysV init scripts for jackd-rt, bluealsad, bluetoothd, jack-bridge-ports
4. Install Alsa Sound Connect GUI to /usr/local/bin/mxeq
5. Create desktop launcher (Applications → Sound & Video → Alsa Sound Connect)
6. Set up Bluetooth D-Bus policies and polkit rules
7. Configure audio group permissions

After reboot, launch Alsa Sound Connect from your applications menu.

Usage

First Launch

1. Open Alsa Sound Connect from Applications menu
2. Mixer controls for internal audio card will be visible
3. All sections (Recording, Bluetooth, Devices) are collapsed by default - expand as needed

Mixer Controls

• Volume sliders - Adjust playback/capture levels
• Mute/Enable checkboxes - Mute playback or enable capture
• Dynamic switching - Controls update when you change devices

Recording

1. Expand "Recording" section
2. Enter filename (auto-saves to ~/Music/)
3. Choose Mono/Stereo and sample rate
4. Click Record → Stop when finished

Device Switching

1. Expand "Devices" section
2. Select Internal, USB, HDMI, or Bluetooth
3. Mixer automatically updates to show that device's controls
4. Audio routes to selected output immediately

Bluetooth Setup

1. Expand "BLUETOOTH" section
2. Click Scan to discover devices
3. Select device → Pair → Trust → Connect
4. Click Set as Output to route audio through Bluetooth
5. OR use Devices panel → Bluetooth radio button

Button Logic:
- Pair: Enabled if device not paired
- Trust: Enabled after pairing
- Connect: Enabled for paired devices
- Remove: Removes device from system

Bluetooth Details

Architecture

jack-bridge integrates BlueZ (Bluetooth stack) and BlueALSA (audio bridge) into the ALSA+JACK pipeline:

Bluetooth Device ←→ bluetoothd ←→ bluealsad ←→ ALSA bluealsa plugin ←→ alsa_out ←→ JACK. Connections visible using graph in qjackctl.

Requirements

• User must be in audio group (installer handles this)
• User should be in bluetooth group if it exists (optional, for better compatibility)
• D-Bus and polkit must be running

On-Demand Port Spawning

USB/HDMi/Bluetooth ports are spawned on-demand because:
- BlueALSA PCM requires an active connection
- Spawning BlueAlsa at boot would fail if no device connected
- On-demand prevents error messages and saves resources

When you select Bluetooth output:
1. Helper checks for connected device
2. Spawns alsa_out -j bluealsa client
3. Creates bluealsa:playback_1/2 JACK ports
4. Routes audio through Bluetooth

Troubleshooting

Bluetooth not working
If your system has bluetooth already it will conflict with the custom bluealsa setup.
You need to remove/delete 20-bluealsa.conf in /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d or /etc/alsa/conf.d
Also remove bluez package and run sudo sh contrib/install.sh again to resolve the conflicts.

Discovery finds nothing:
bash
rfkill list # Check if Bluetooth blocked
sudo rfkill unblock bluetooth # Unblock if needed
service bluetoothd status # Ensure daemon running

Cannot pair/connect:
- Verify user groups: id -nG (should show audio, optionally bluetooth)
- Check polkit rule exists: ls /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/90-jack-bridge-bluetooth.rules
- Check D-Bus policy: ls /usr/share/dbus-1/system.d/org.bluealsa.conf

No audio on Bluetooth:
bash
jack_lsp | grep bluealsa # Verify ports exist
service bluealsad status # Ensure daemon running

Re-select Bluetooth in Devices panel or run:
bash
/usr/local/lib/jack-bridge/jack-route-select bluetooth

Building from Source

Quick Build (Uses Prebuilt Binaries)

The installer uses prebuilt BlueALSA binaries in contrib/bin/. To rebuild everything from source:

Building BlueALSA Components

See detailed guides:
- BUILD_PLUGINS_GUIDE.md - Build matching ALSA plugins
- bluealsa-INSTALL.md - BlueALSA build dependencies and options
- blue-alsaREADME.md - BlueALSA project documentation

Quick Steps

1. Install build dependencies:
   bash
   sudo apt install -y build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config \
   git libasound2-dev libbluetooth-dev libdbus-1-dev libglib2.0-dev libsbc-dev

2. Clone and build BlueALSA:
   bash
   cd /tmp
   git clone https://github.com/Arkq/bluez-alsa.git
   cd bluez-alsa
   autoreconf --install --force
   ./configure --enable-aplay --enable-rfcomm --enable-cli
   make -j$(nproc)

3. Copy binaries to jack-bridge:
   bash
   cp utils/.libs/bluealsad ~/jack-bridge/contrib/bin/
   cp utils/.libs/bluealsactl ~/jack-bridge/contrib/bin/
   cp utils/.libs/bluealsa-aplay ~/jack-bridge/contrib/bin/
   cp utils/.libs/bluealsa-rfcomm ~/jack-bridge/contrib/bin/
   cp src/.libs/libasound_module_pcm_bluealsa.so ~/jack-bridge/contrib/bin/
   cp src/.libs/libasound_module_ctl_bluealsa.so ~/jack-bridge/contrib/bin/

Recommended options for sysvinit (non-systemd) systems:
- Do NOT enable systemd unit files: do not pass --enable-systemd
- To include the RFCOMM tool: pass --enable-rfcomm
- To set a non-root runtime user (useful when running without systemd):
../configure --prefix=/usr/local --with-bluealsaduser=bluealsa --enable-rfcomm

Example
autoreconf --install
mkdir build && cd build
../configure --prefix=/usr/local --with-bluealsaduser=bluealsa --enable-rfcomm
make

Install (optional)
- Install to the system:
sudo make install
- Or stage into a directory for packaging:
sudo make DESTDIR=$(pwd)/BLUEALSA install

Per-binary minimal compile commands (useful for producing a single utility if you have the relevant source file)
- These are minimal gcc commands (assume src/ contains the single utility source and pkg-config is available):

• bluealsactl (requires GLib/GIO and D-Bus):
  gcc -Wall -Wextra -o contrib/bin/bluealsactl src/bluealsactl.c $(pkg-config --cflags --libs glib-2.0 gio-2.0 dbus-1)

• bluealsa-aplay (requires GLib/GIO, D-Bus, and ALSA):
  gcc -Wall -Wextra -o contrib/bin/bluealsa-aplay src/bluealsa-aplay.c $(pkg-config --cflags --libs glib-2.0 gio-2.0 dbus-1 alsa)

• bluealsa-rfcomm (requires GLib/GIO, D-Bus, and readline):
  gcc -Wall -Wextra -o contrib/bin/bluealsa-rfcomm src/bluealsa-rfcomm.c $(pkg-config --cflags --libs glib-2.0 gio-2.0 dbus-1) -lreadline

• bluealsad (daemon)

• The daemon links multiple internal sources and should be built with the Autotools workflow (no supported single-file gcc command). Use the example configure+make sequence above.

Building GUI (mxeq)

bash
cd ~/jack-bridge
make clean && make

The Makefile builds mxeq (GUI) and bt_agent (Bluetooth agent helper) jack-bridge-dbus (Works with customq jackctl)

Building custom qjackctl

You will need to change the name of qjackctl-1.0.4-jack-bridge-mod back to qjackctl-1.0.4 to match build-qjackctl.sh

chmod -x build-qjackctl.sh 

./build-qjackctl.sh

Uninstall

To completely remove jack-bridge:

bash
cd ~/jack-bridge
sudo sh contrib/uninstall.sh

The uninstaller removes:
- All init scripts and service registrations
- Installed binaries (mxeq, BlueALSA tools)
- Configuration files (/etc/asound.conf, /etc/jack-bridge/)
- Desktop launcher
- Polkit rules and D-Bus policies
- Helper scripts

Note: The uninstaller does NOT remove:
- Installed packages (jackd, alsa-utils, bluez, etc.)
- User-created recordings in ~/Music/
- User-specific configs in ~/.config/jack-bridge/

To also remove packages:
bash
sudo apt remove jackd2 qjackctl bluez bluez-tools libasound2-plugins \
alsa-utils apulse swh-plugins
sudo apt autoremove

Architecture

Service Stack (SysV Init)

Boot Sequence:
├─ dbus (system)
├─ bluetoothd (BlueZ Bluetooth daemon)
├─ bluealsad (BlueALSA audio bridge)
├─ jackd-rt (JACK audio server)
└─ jack-bridge-ports (persistent USB/HDMI bridge ports)

Shutdown Sequence (reverse order with graceful termination)

Audio Pipeline

Application (ALSA API)
↓
/etc/asound.conf (routing config)
↓
ALSA JACK Plugin (bridge to JACK)
↓
JACK Audio Server (jackd)
├─ system:playback_1/2 (internal)
├─ usb_out:playback_1/2 (USB)
├─ hdmi_out:playback_1/2 (HDMI)
└─ bluealsa:playback_1/2 (Bluetooth, on-demand)
↓
ALSA Device (hw:X)
↓
Audio Output

File Locations

Binaries:
- /usr/local/bin/mxeq - Alsa Sound Connect GUI
- /usr/local/bin/bluealsad - BlueALSA daemon
- /usr/local/bin/bluealsactl - BlueALSA control utility
- /usr/local/bin/bluealsa-aplay - BlueALSA player
- /usr/local/bin/bluealsa-rfcomm - Bluetooth RFCOMM terminal

Init Scripts:
- /etc/init.d/jackd-rt - JACK audio server
- /etc/init.d/bluealsad - BlueALSA daemon
- /etc/init.d/bluetoothd - BlueZ Bluetooth daemon
- /etc/init.d/jack-bridge-ports - Bridge ports

Configuration:
- /etc/asound.conf - ALSA routing and EQ configuration
- /etc/jack-bridge/devices.conf - Device preferences (Internal/USB/HDMI/Bluetooth)
- /usr/share/dbus-1/system.d/org.bluealsa.conf - BlueALSA D-Bus policy
- /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/90-jack-bridge-bluetooth.rules - Bluetooth permissions

Helpers:
- /usr/local/lib/jack-bridge/jack-route-select - Device routing helper
- /usr/local/lib/jack-bridge/detect-alsa-device.sh - Device detection
- /usr/local/lib/jack-bridge/jack-autoconnect - Auto-connection helper

User Data:
- ~/Music/ - Recorded audio files
- ~/.config/jack-bridge/devices.conf - Per-user device preferences

Credits

jack-bridge by @rations

Built with:
- JACK Audio Connection Kit - Professional audio server
- ALSA - Linux sound architecture
- BlueZ - Official Linux Bluetooth stack
- BlueALSA - Bluetooth audio ALSA backend by Arkadiusz Bokowy
- AlsaTune GUI - Original mixer GUI by mrgreenjeans (SourceForge)
- QjackCtl - JACK Audio Connection Kit GUI by Rui Nuno Capela (QjackCtl)

License

This project is open source. Individual components retain their original licenses:
- jack-bridge scripts and integration: See LICENSE
- BlueALSA: MIT License
- JACK: LGPL/GPL
- ALSA: LGPL
- QjackCtl: GPL
- ALSA: LGPL

Support

Issues: GitHub Issues

Documentation:
- BUILD_PLUGINS_GUIDE.md - Building ALSA plugins
- bluealsa-INSTALL.md - BlueALSA installation details
- blue-alsaREADME.md - BlueALSA project documentation
- qjackctl-custom-build.md - Build custom qjackctl

Note: This project intentionally avoids systemd, PulseAudio, and PipeWire. It's designed for systems where a lightweight, JACK-first audio stack is desired.