On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:16:25 -0500 Mark Kamichoff <p...@prolixium.com> dijo:
>It's got me wondering, do folks out there who have the appropriate >headsets actually use Bluetooth hi-fi audio on Linux? Perhaps there is >a workaround for this problem that everybody's using, that doesn't >appear on any Google searches? > >Anyone else in the same boat? Any suggestions? I agree completely with your dislike of being tethered to wires. I bought a pair of Sony DR-BT50 headphones back in my days of Hardy x86_64, and they worked fine. But the dist-upgrade to Intrepid broke them, and I could not get a peep out of them all the way through the life cycle of Jaunty. Recently I had some free time and decided to go distro shopping. I started with Debian testing, but I couldn't even get my bluetooth mouse to work. I might have succeeded, but after several days I suddenly lost gnome-panel and metacity and, unable to repair the issue,* I moved on to Fedora 12. Fedora 12 automatically found my bluetooth mouse and later I was able to get the headphones working. But about the second day I lost metacity again. So I wiped it out and tried OpenSuse 11.2. Same story. I blamed the desktop issues on the new Gnome 2.8.x that all three of these distros came with, so I wiped out OpenSuse 11.2 and installed 11.1. I never had an issue with the desktop, but after several days I gave up on its package management which, for someone like me, spoiled by using Debian for so long, was a miserable mess of dependency hell. Finally I went back to Fedora, but version 11 instead of the latest. Again, I got my bluetooth mouse working in a couple minutes, later I got the headphones working, and I also got my cell phone working. As for the headphones, they work with every app that puts out audio - Rhythmbox, Totem, VLC, MPlayer, Audacity, etc. All I have to do is turn them on before launching the app. If I don't turn them on, then the sound comes out of the speakers. Now, as to how to get your bluetooth headphones working in Debian, I don't have any specific instructions I can give you because I am still on Fedora 11. But I can tell you what packages Fedora installs. These are: blueman, bluez, bluez-cups, bluez-libs, gnome-bluetooth, gnome-bluetooth-libs, gnome-user-share, gvfs-obexftp, obex-data-server, obexd, and pulseaudio-module-bluetooth. Of this list I think one of the big differences is blueman. I recall using blueman back in the early days of Intrepid. It was not in the Ubuntu repos and I had to install it from a .deb file that I downloaded from the blueman web site. In the process of installing it I also had to install a bunch of dependencies manually. And it uninstalled some of the bluetooth stuff that Intrepid was using. It appears that Fedora now includes it automatically with at least 11 and 12. I should also add that you need a .asoundrc file in your ~/. It's just a text file. Mine contains: pcm.bluetooth { type bluetooth device 00:1A:80:4E:84:BE # change this address profile "a2dp" # the "a2dp" here is what gets you stereo hi-fi } There is also a long thread here that you might find useful: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=694010 I hope some of that helps you get your bluetooth headphones working. *I eventually lost metacity with Fedora 11, so I had to conclude that the problem was not Gnome 2.8.x, as I originally thought. There was a lot of discussion on this list back when I had the problem with Debian testing. I had created a new user, and the new user had no problems with the desktop. Therefore, I knew it had to be something in my Gnome configs. One user here suggested polluting the new user with my Gnome config files one at a time. I had done that, and even after polluting the new user with every one of my Gnome configuration files the new user still had metacity and gnome-panel. That's about when I gave up and moved on. When it happened in Fedora 11 I went back to trying to figure out what it was. Again I created a new user, and the new user had no problems, even after polluting the new user with my Gnome config files. So I started looking at other dot config files. I finally found the problem. The new user lost metacity when I copied my .local folder to the new user. Poking through the .local folder I spied a file ~/.local/share/applications/metacity.desktop that looked suspicious. I had renamed each of the new user's original config files before copying mine over, so I could compare the new user's original .local folder. The new user did not originally have this file. So I renamed the file in my .local folder, logged out and back in, and metacity started as it is supposed to. Problem resolved. I never discovered what process created this evil file. I'd sure like to know so I can file a bug report against whatever it is. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org