how 2 get mpd working as a user service on open rc with pipewire using libpulse so it shows in pulsemixer

enable user services if yours aren't saying they startted when you log into tty:
cd /etc/init.d;ln -s user user.user0
replace user0 with your user

ok now rather than be sensible, the developers decided to put the script and configs of USER SERVICES in fucking /etc so just

copy /etc/init.d/mpd to /etc/user/init.d and comment out the function start_pre()
also change the CDGFILE:= to $HOME/.config/mpd/mpd.conf
don't use XDG_CONFIG_HOME as most distros inc gentoo don't set it
the XDG spec is a mess, see picrel
also comment out need localmount in depend()

ok in ~/.config/mpd/mpd.conf add this stuff:
music_directory "~/music" # set to what urs is maybe even $XDG_MUSIC_DIR
log_file "$HOME/.cache/mpd/log # (yeah XDG_CACHE_HOME was also unset?)
pid_file "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/mpd/mpd.pid" # or any tmpfs owned by you, [systemd-/e]logind provides this normally
user "user0" # set to your user idk use $USER
group "user0" # prolly ok as $USER on your system too

ok now setting pulseaido as the output device do

audio_output {
type "pulse"
name "Pulse Output" # idek if this is arbritraty
mixer_control "Master"
}

you might have to make a few dirs and even touch a couple files

keep doing rc-service –user mpd start and when it stops complainign about missing paths it should work


why bother?
pipiewire; why is it not a system service? why does it reject connections from other dbus sessions? why does each user have to run it themselves? at least it works better than pulseaudio ever did, but htis deliverate design choice (again?) baffels me and makes me think IBM are full of people who want to make my life hard. ok so that's why it has to be a user service.

the alternative is to run mpd as a system service as user mpd and group audio, with the following config for raw alsa output:

audio_output {
type "alsa"
name "default"
mixer_type "software"
}

then you can have a system-wide mpd isntance. I already did this on my laptop I just wanted to find an excuse to test openrc's user services. the only difference is that each user can have their own stream, and the mp daemon's volume level will show in things like pavucontrol. wow