Jack Graph

Jack Graph is a graphical JACK Audio Connection Kit and ALSA MIDI port connection manager. It provides an interactive visual graph interface for routing audio and MIDI signals between applications and hardware on Linux systems.

Jack Graph manages the JACK server directly — you can start and stop JACK, configure your audio interface, sample rate, buffer size, and MIDI settings from within the application. No external tools or system services are required.

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Features

Visual Graph Interface

• Interactive canvas with drag and drop port connections
• Auto-layout algorithm for ports and clients
• Zoom in/out with mouse wheel, pan by dragging the canvas background
• Client grouping boxes to organize ports by application

JACK Audio Support

• Start and stop the JACK server directly from within the application
• Configure interface, sample rate, frames/period, periods/buffer, and MIDI driver
• Live port monitoring — updates dynamically when ports appear or disappear
• Real-time connection and disconnection of audio ports
• Status bar shows buffer size, sample rate, and xrun count

ALSA MIDI Support

• Lists ALSA hardware and software MIDI ports
• Displayed alongside JACK ports on the same canvas
• MIDI ports are visually distinguished from audio ports

Settings Dialog

• Interface dropdown shows device names (e.g. HDA Intel PCH - ALC269VB Analog) not raw IDs
• Realtime and synchronous mode checkboxes
• Settings are saved between sessions in ~/.config/jack-graph/config

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Installation

From a Release

Download the release tarball, extract it, and run the installer:

tar -xf jack-graph.tar.gz
cd jack-graph
sudo bash install.sh

The installer detects your package manager and installs the required dependencies automatically. It also adds your user to the audio group, which is needed for JACK realtime priority. Log out and back in after installing for the group change to take effect.

What the installer does

• Installs runtime dependencies (see table below)
• On Debian/Devuan: holds qjackctl with apt-mark hold so it is not pulled in as a recommendation when installing jackd2 — jack-graph replaces it
• Adds your user to the audio group
• Installs the jack-graph binary to /usr/local/bin
• Installs the desktop entry to /usr/share/applications

Runtime dependencies by distro

Distro	Packages installed
Debian / Devuan / Ubuntu	jackd2 libgtkmm-3.0-1v5 libasound2 alsa-utils
Arch / Artix	jack2 gtkmm3 alsa-lib alsa-utils
Void	jack gtkmm3 alsa-lib alsa-utils
Fedora	jack-audio-connection-kit gtkmm30 alsa-lib alsa-utils

If your package manager is not detected, the installer will print the packages you need to install manually.

Uninstall

sudo bash uninstall.sh

This removes the binary and desktop entry, and removes the apt-mark hold on qjackctl if it was set. Runtime dependencies are left in place.

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Building from Source

Build dependencies

Debian / Devuan / Ubuntu:

sudo apt install g++ make pkg-config libgtkmm-3.0-dev libjack-jackd2-dev libasound2-dev

Arch / Artix:

sudo pacman -S base-devel jack2 gtkmm3 alsa-lib

Void:

sudo xbps-install gcc make pkg-config gtkmm3-devel jack-devel alsa-lib-devel

Fedora:

sudo dnf install gcc-c++ make pkgconf gtkmm30-devel jack-audio-connection-kit-devel alsa-lib-devel

Build and install

make
sudo bash install.sh

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Usage

1. Open Jack Graph from your application menu or run jack-graph in a terminal
2. Go to Settings → JACK Settings
3. Select your audio interface from the dropdown (shows device names, not raw IDs)
4. Set your desired sample rate, frames/period, and periods/buffer
5. Press Start to launch the JACK server
6. All running audio applications and hardware ports appear automatically on the canvas
7. Connect ports: click and drag from an output (right side of a client box) to an input (left side)
8. Disconnect: right-click an existing connection line
9. Press Stop in the Settings dialog to shut down the JACK server
10. Use the mouse wheel to zoom, drag empty canvas to pan

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Technologies

Component	Technology
GUI Toolkit	GTK+ 3.0 with gtkmm-3.0 C++ bindings
Audio Server	JACK Audio Connection Kit (jackd2)
MIDI System	ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
Language	C++17
Build System	GNU Make
Graphics	Cairo 2D graphics library

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Project Structure

jack-graph/
├── src/
│   ├── main.cpp                      # Application entry point
│   ├── JackGraph.hpp/cpp             # Main window and application logic
│   ├── JackClient.hpp/cpp            # JACK audio server client
│   ├── AlsaClient.hpp/cpp            # ALSA MIDI client
│   ├── GraphCanvas.hpp/cpp           # Canvas for node/connection graph
│   ├── Node.hpp/cpp                  # Port node representation
│   ├── Connection.hpp/cpp            # Connection between two ports
│   ├── ClientBox.hpp/cpp             # Grouping container for client ports
│   ├── Config.hpp/cpp                # Configuration file (~/.config/jack-graph/config)
│   ├── JackServerControl.hpp/cpp     # JACK server start/stop (fork/exec jackd directly)
│   └── SettingsDialog.hpp/cpp        # Settings dialog UI
├── resources/
│   └── jack-graph.desktop            # Desktop entry file
├── install.sh                        # Installer (multi-distro)
├── uninstall.sh                      # Uninstaller
├── Makefile                          # Build configuration
└── LICENSE                           # GPL-2.0

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License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0. See LICENSE for details.