Re: Bluetooth A2DP
On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:16:25 -0500
Mark Kamichoff <prox@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.
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