jack-bridge Wiki
Audio and bluetooth stack for debian systems without systemd
Status: Beta
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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 https://sourceforge.net/projects/vuu-do/
JACK Audio Connection Kit - Professional audio server https://jackaudio.org/
BlueALSA - Bluetooth audio ALSA backend by Arkadiusz Bokowy https://github.com/Arkq/bluez-alsa
QjackCtl - JACK Audio Connection Kit GUI by Rui Nuno Capela https://qjackctl.sourceforge.io/
BlueZ - Official Linux Bluetooth stack https://www.bluez.org/
ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/Main_Page
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
tar -xf jack-bridge-20260120.tar.gz
cd jack-bridge-20260120
sudo sh contrib/install.sh
sudo reboot