[lloeki]

> which flavour/version of Linux they use.

> this isn't a distribution problem

Exactly. This all shouldn't be distro dependent when the only things involved are ALSA (kernel) and pipewire/pulseaudio.

Both unfortunately have distros do "things" to them all. Some default to dmix, some to direct hardware with PW/PA dynamically spawned and thus getting exclusive access for a single Unix user while the others are SOL, and other painful conundrums because they thought "we'll just do this and then it just works" for a single basic use case.