25H2 -- Debian 13 sound crackling and slow window response time

[tay ozd]

Hello everyone,

I have both debian 12 and debian 13 guests installed on my Win 10 host. Debian 12 gives me no problems. Everything works perfect. Debian 13 on the other hand has a lot of problems. Below are the most important two problems.

Sound problem

No matter what I do, the sound in Debian 13 running on VMware 25H2 is always crackling. But I don't see this problem in Debian 12, only Debian 13. Below are the tests I run:

Debian 12 - Use default sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation On - Sound Works
Debian 13 - Use default sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation On - Sound Crackling

Debian 12 - Use default sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation Off - Sound Works
Debian 13 - Use default sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation Off - Sound Crackling

Debian 12 - Specify host sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation On - Sound Works
Debian 13 - Specify host sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation On - Sound Crackling

Debian 12 - Specify host sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation Off - Sound Works
Debian 13 - Specify host sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation Off - Sound Crackling

Debian 12 - Use default sound card - Yeti Blue Classic - Echo Cancellation On - Sound Works
Debian 13 - Use default sound card - Yeti Blue Classic - Echo Cancellation On - Sound Crackling

Debian 12 - Use default sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation Off - Sound Works
Debian 13 - Use default sound card - RealTek Audio - Echo Cancellation Off - Sound Crackling

Debian 12 - Use default sound card - Yeti Blue Classic - Echo Cancellation On - Sound Works
Debian 13 - Use default sound card - Yeti Blue Classic - Echo Cancellation On - Sound Crackling

Debian 12 - Use default sound card - Yeti Blue Classic - Echo Cancellation Off - Sound Works
Debian 13 - Use default sound card - Yeti Blue Classic - Echo Cancellation Off - Sound Crackling

Summary: Sound is always crackling with debian 13 running on 25H2 no matter what you try.

In addition that, I tried 10+ different sound related solutions I found in this forum, reddit, etc. Nothing worked. The sound at Debian 13 is always crackling no matter what.

Cycle multiple monitors button freezes Debian 13

The other problem is that, I have two monitors. When I click "Cycle multiple monitors" button when Debian 12 is active, Debian 12 reacts in around 200ms or so.

On the other hand, when I click the same "Cycle multiple monitors" button when Debian 13 is active, Debian 13 freezes for 4-5 seconds. After that Debian 13 starts using both monitors as usual. 

Are there any solutions to these two issues? I would greatly appreciate the help! Please let me know if you need additional information. 

Thanks in advance!

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[Lou Yovin]

IMO: Debian still has a few warts, whether as a VM or the host. I am using it for a host and have a guest as well. I use the guest for development and testing. I don't use any sound applications (I am very hard of hearing) so I can't comment on that. It can be very slow "painting" the screen when changing virtual machines and the D13 guest can be very laggy. Probably wait for D13 to get ironed out or stay with 12. I also run LMDE6 on my host and have no issues, although the D13s VM behaves the same way. 

The price you pay for early adoption, IMO.(always wait for .1)

[Ian Forbes]

What desktop environment are you using?

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[tay ozd]

I am using Windows 10 as a host, Gnome on Debian 13 as a guest.

Also, I just tested Ubuntu 25.10. It has the same sound problems. 

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[Ji Huo]

It looks like an issue caused by using PipeWire over PulseAudio starting from Debian 13.   PipeWire does not seem to work well on VMWare.  

Users can follow below link to revert back to PulseAudio. It works for any distros that on based on Debian 13 (Ubuntu below).

https://github.com/ErfanParasti/sound-fix-vmware-linux/tree/main/ubuntus

To Broadcom, please kindly register this as a workitem to follow up with.  Thank you.

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[Technogeezer]

Before ripping out pipewire, did you try tuning it per instructions found in the pipewire wiki: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/Troubleshooting#stuttering-audio-in-virtual-machine

This has seemed to improve things for other users of distros that use  wireplumber (version 0.5 and later) in conjunction with pipewire (e.g Fedora and SuSE). 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[gbohn]

I'm not sure if it helps you or not, but I had pipewire issues with Fedora 41 some months back where the audio was totally unusable. (Fedora 41 guest under Windows 11 Host with Workstation 17.6.4 I think).

It seems it does not (or at least did not) play well with VMWare Workstation (at least with my setup).

I found https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/Troubleshooting#stuttering-audio-in-virtual-machine.

Following a suggestion there, instead of switching back to alsa, I created a file 

~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/50-alsa-config.conf

which altered settings for

        api.alsa.period-size   = 1024
        api.alsa.headroom      = 8192

I tried that instead of going back to Alsa on the theory I would need to use pipewire someday.

At any rate I thought I would mention it just in case it's helpful.

I've since updated to Fedora 42 (over the prior Fedora 41), but I left that file as is.

I guess I should probably see if removing it (that customization file) still breaks my sound...

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[richard612]

I've little experience with Linux guests but this has been helpful for Windows guests.  In the VM's .vmx file:

sound.bufferTotalMS = "200"
sound.bufferIdealMS = "100"

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