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Idea #95: Better bluetooth support

bug This idea was marked as implemented the 22 August 09.
Written by tighem the 28 Feb 08 at 17:24. Category: System. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: Implemented
Rationale
Bluetooth support is still a mixed bag in ubuntu. Ubuntu needs to do a better job of making sure bluetooth devices work with the operating system. Headsets are still an arcane science and Nautilus still can't browse a BT device.

2266
votes
implemented
Selected solution (#1): Auto-generated solution of idea #95
Written by tighem the 28 Feb 08 at 17:24.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #95 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!
30
votes
implemented
Selected solution (#2): Voice over bluetooth should be included by default.
Written by Martin1980 the 14 May 09 at 14:31.
Voice over bluetooth should be included by default when you installed Ubuntu. Regardless accessories / manufacturer.

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Alan Pope (Ubuntu developer) wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 17:26
Nautilus _can_ browse a BT device perfectly well once you have installed the necessary obex stuff (gnome-vfs-obexftp).

exosyst wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 18:08
the gnome-vfs is deprecated but the new GVFS should be offering an improved bluetooth backend. The BT audio and others would be nice though

fergus wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 20:12
Mouse, Modem/Phone and Headset support need lots of love.. You shouldn't need a command line to configure them.

stbaker wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 00:54
I would love to be able to easily setup a serial connection to my bluetooth phone. Right now I have to use windows + bitpim to transfer numbers, ringtones, etc. There's a linux version of bitpim available, it would be great to actually be able to use it.

aliencam wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 01:15
I don't think compatibility is as much a problem as just an extremely bad interface. I have never not gotten the "OBEX[******] Cannot be found, maybe you misspelled something?" error when clicking to connect a device (on multiple computers even) When I didn't type anything in the first place, how could I have misspelled it? and syncing the devices is a pain anyway.

gatman3 wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:29
Maybe Nautilus or Konqueror *can* browse a BT device, but when I browse my cell phone's file system I find that I need to hit the reload button often to get it to display directory contents properly.

I have also found that the pegasus driver is selected by default for my Belkin USB-BT adapter, but its the wrong driver. I need to go into /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and blacklist the pegasus driver, and then manually add the bcm203x driver in /etc/modules.

Definitely needs a little polishing.

someonestolemyname wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 05:58
I always see the obex error when browsing my phone unless I install gnome-vfs-obexftp. I put up an idea regarding this being installed by default.

daniel1992.wordpress.com

AndrewGene wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 06:26
There are several programs that will manage obex with a cell phone rather nicely (i.e. graphically). However, A2DP is not good at all. I can get sound to my stereo headphones but it is only mono.

tshrinivasan wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 08:22
Bluetooth should be common for both gnome and kde. like Cups is common for printing, Bluetooth device drivers should come up with a common framework, so that any application can use them.

HardDisk wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 09:15
blueman.tuxfamily.org

scaine wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 14:30
I'll second Blueman. Get it installed and almost all your Bluetooth cares are simply and beautifully taken care of. Excellent tool which really shows up the native Bluez utils included by default.

Hemanti wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 17:17
I totally agree with you, Scaine. Blueman should be in tzhe standard distribution and used by default.

I always had problems transferring files from or to my phone with the standard bluetooth configuration and I could read as many manuals and change as many configuration files as i wanted. It just stopped to work after a couple of months after the last change or ubuntu install. With blueman I havenb't had a single error so far and I discovered many fuctions I had to use extra programs for or didn't even think of before.

qaaq wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 17:53
BT works fine out of the box for me since hardy. Hardy is particularly good. I can browse my phone, share and receive files, etc. I can send and recieve SMS messages using gnome-phone-manager.

I agree the file manager needs a bit of work, and so do headsets - A2DP sucks. We aren't far off of where we need to be overall though.

muecker wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 18:26
I agree with blueman as a start. Its about as easy as it gets for working with bluetooth devices. Start with the functionality of blueman and add plugins for working with phones (contact and calendar sync, text messages, caller id, etc.) and other devices.

geoffp wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 19:12
I've been struggling to get a generic Bluetooth GPS to work with Ubuntu. I'm a command-line guy and have no problem editing various files under /etc. However, to get this device working, I need to run and configure hcitool, rfcomm, sdptool not to mention gpsd and the actual application I want to run.
I hate to say this, but getting this device to run on Window and Macintosh was a piece of cake.

There is a great opportunity to create a simple tool to robustly setup Bluetooth.

tech404 wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 20:31
As of Hardy Alpha 5 that my Logitech bluetooth receiver still locks up from bluez. This has been a known bug for at lease 2 releases and has stopped two people I know from adopting linux. When your computer starts up and the kb and mouse doesn't work people leave without looking back. If dev's wont/can't fix problems like this maybe at least a fall back similar to bulletproof X?

thevirtuesofxen wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 05:28
People still use Bluetooth on PC's? Wow.

gatman3 wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 05:48
Yeah. Go figure, it beats using a USB cable to sync to my phone.

downdb wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 16:52
Oh man, how I would love to be able to use my bluetooth headset with Skype *without* having it be a pain in the butt.

AzazelMazikin wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 18:05
Still, no clear PAN gui. I have two PCs running Ubuntu. Both have BT USB dongles. Link them thru BT is a headache

3dOptics wrote on the 27 Mar 08 at 03:04
I have a bluetooth device that has a pin ex. 1231 . There should be a option in the Bluetooth Manager that ask me if the device requires a pin and then allows me to enter the pin in a textbox.

felimu wrote on the 29 Mar 08 at 22:19
On HP Pavillion dv6558ea had to disable Bluetooth to get 7.10 to boot.

mlapaglia wrote on the 7 Apr 08 at 02:00
My bluetooth mouse really sucks on Ubuntu, sometimes it works well and others it won't connect at all. Sometimes the applet says the mouse is connected, even if the mouse is off or if it isn't synced. Sometimes is syncs but it isn't used as a mouse, even if I have it selected to do such. Sometimes it will have a 2 second delay between my hand movement and the mouse on the screen movement. sometimes it will randomly sync after it hasn't been working for a while.

I mean.. wow.

Wiplash4 wrote on the 7 Apr 08 at 10:51
Install better support for all wireless devices!

veltresnas wrote on the 6 Jun 08 at 03:55
After loosing my phone bluetooth's drivers cd for windows, my BT became useless because I couldn't find the drivers on the web...

But, guess what?
Yes, I tried it on Kubuntu, and worked perfectly...
I fell in love with Kubuntu!

Who needs Windows?

Some time later I installed Ubuntu and I liked a lot, (I´m still using it) but the gnome bluez doesn't connect, it said something stupid about an invalid adress...

I installed the packages for KDE, and worked, but only to send files, no to browse my phone, too bad...

Better bluetooth support!!

Diggs808 wrote on the 6 Jun 08 at 19:06
+ 1 on this for me.

I have tried numerous times to configure BT on my Ubuntu and it still sucks. Windows works great for that...sigh...

biji wrote on the 18 Sep 08 at 04:42
bt works for me.. but i want support for a2dp bluetooth headset... so i can change audio sink to a2dp with simple click
though i have made a simple script for this

simon_w wrote on the 22 Sep 08 at 01:42
+1, especially for improved ad2p support

Despite much googling and many attempts using alsa and pulseaudio, I've still never heard anything from my bluetooth speakers using ubuntu. I've tried various scripts and howtos, and I even tried writing some python code myself which I was fairly sure would work, but, alas, no joy.

Since my on-board bluetooth won't work in a virtual machine, this is now the only reason I ever boot into Windows.

kelvan wrote on the 24 Sep 08 at 22:14
Maybe there will be a useable Bluetooth-Headset config.
At the moment nothing works with my Bluetooth-Headset since Gutsy, in Feisty a hcitool scan btsco XXXXXX works great, but now btsco doesn't find the headset (hcitool does).
Blueman say that pairing ist sucessful, but my headset don't know that :(

cubytus wrote on the 9 Oct 08 at 11:54
+1 for this and the use of BlueMan by default. OK, it's not a philosophically perfect replacement of the default manager, but it works pretty well.

Just using a BT headset with Skype shouldn't give the impression of winning a battle.

Pfeoora wrote on the 14 Dec 08 at 23:58
Yap! It's a pain in the arse... Everytime I want to try out a new Ubuntu release I first have to search for my old keyboard since my bluetooth keyboard is not automatically paired. Always have to pair it manually with hcid tool or so. I wonder why, OpenSuSe does this right out of the box, flawlessly.

Pfeoora wrote on the 14 Dec 08 at 23:59
Yap! It's a pain in the arse... Everytime I want to try out a new Ubuntu release I first have to search for my old keyboard since my bluetooth keyboard is not automatically paired. Always have to pair it manually with hcid tool or so. I wonder why, OpenSuSe does this right out of the box, flawlessly.
+1

AndyCee wrote on the 22 Dec 08 at 05:17
Definitely a need.

I know of two people who have dismissed Ubuntu as it doesn't automatically detect their bluetooth mouse and keyboard. How does a first-time user install the required packages without those?

If other distros can detect it at install-time, I can't see an excuse for Ubuntu not to.

jarobman wrote on the 25 Dec 08 at 21:52
One thing I realized when trying to get my phone to work is that some providers block the OBEX protocol to prevent the transfer of files. Such is my situation right now unfortunately. I have been able to get it working in Windows, so for now I will have to go the VirtualBox route.

I do agree that BT needs major work in Ubuntu, it's shameful that it is in its current state. However, this probably not the fault of Ubuntu completely as the BT Consortium (of which M$ is part of) controls which platforms BT devices will be supported on. It really sucks when a proprietary format becomes a popular standard :(

chezzo wrote on the 19 Jan 09 at 01:01
Bluetooth used to work fine for me on Gutsy and Hardy, but upgrading to Intrepid broke several features... and I'm not the only one... http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=982cf004bf120ffb63b0562a17cf16c6&t=964 139

Bluetooth has to be more thoroughly tested in new releases.

RgnKjnVA wrote on the 2 Jun 09 at 16:43
In my experience, the latest Blueman is MUCH improved. It's not in the Ubuntu repos yet but go to blueman-project.org. There is a PPA but I dont' have it handy at the moment.

petrosyan@gmail.com wrote on the 19 Aug 09 at 14:53
with the inclusion of gnome-bluetooth package in the default installation of Ubuntu 9.10, I think this idea should be marked as implemented.

saivann (Brainstorm moderator) wrote on the 22 Aug 09 at 04:02
Bluetooth improved a lot with each new release since this idea was voted for the first time. I can't say if most of you are satisfied of the work done by the developers, but if you are not, please open a clear new idea about exactly what you need.

This idea was totally blurry, which is against brainstorm guidelines and which makes impossible to say that it is implemented or not, so I'm marking this idea as implemented to let brainstormers report more specifically what they want in brand new ideas.

Thanks for your participation!


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