[gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

Hello list,

Is there a knack to getting my plasma desktop to operate happily with my new 
Bluetooth speakers? I can get a connection using the Bluetooth control panel, 
and the sound device appears in the Audio control panel, but testing either 
speaker produces no sound.

The Gentoo wiki was helpful in getting everything I need (well, I thought I 
had), but still I seem to be missing one link in the chain.

(I still have the old M-Audio speakers with their line-in, but so far I've 
lost two motherboard sound chips and two USB dongles while using them, so I 
wanted to try something else.)

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Jack]

I have a photive BT speaker that I've used successfully with plasma on 
my Artix laptop.  I can test later with my Gentoo desktop to confirm.  I 
don't remember if you use pulseaudio or not, but if so, I'd check 
pavucontrol to see if it also thinks that device is active and being 
used by whatever app is producing the sound, and also that the volume 
meter is showing any output.

Probably not relevant to you, but I've recently solved a long-standing 
problem with audio (not just BT, also wired, but mostly with the mic) 
where my system monitor (gkrellm, and specifically its gkrellmss plugin) 
had grabbed the audio device, so although pavucontrol saw that the 
device existed, it couldn't actually do anything with it, and the volume 
meter didn't even show up.  Solved in the short term by just disabling 
that plugin.

Jack

On 5/5/22 11:22, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> Is there a knack to getting my plasma desktop to operate happily with my new
> Bluetooth speakers? I can get a connection using the Bluetooth control panel,
> and the sound device appears in the Audio control panel, but testing either
> speaker produces no sound.
>
> The Gentoo wiki was helpful in getting everything I need (well, I thought I
> had), but still I seem to be missing one link in the chain.
>
> (I still have the old M-Audio speakers with their line-in, but so far I've
> lost two motherboard sound chips and two USB dongles while using them, so I
> wanted to try something else.)
>

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Michael]

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On Thursday, 5 May 2022 17:21:46 BST Jack wrote:
> I have a photive BT speaker that I've used successfully with plasma on
> my Artix laptop.  I can test later with my Gentoo desktop to confirm.  I
> don't remember if you use pulseaudio or not, but if so, I'd check
> pavucontrol to see if it also thinks that device is active and being
> used by whatever app is producing the sound, and also that the volume
> meter is showing any output.
> 
> Probably not relevant to you, but I've recently solved a long-standing
> problem with audio (not just BT, also wired, but mostly with the mic)
> where my system monitor (gkrellm, and specifically its gkrellmss plugin)
> had grabbed the audio device, so although pavucontrol saw that the
> device existed, it couldn't actually do anything with it, and the volume
> meter didn't even show up.  Solved in the short term by just disabling
> that plugin.
> 
> Jack
> 
> On 5/5/22 11:22, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Hello list,
> > 
> > Is there a knack to getting my plasma desktop to operate happily with my
> > new Bluetooth speakers? I can get a connection using the Bluetooth
> > control panel, and the sound device appears in the Audio control panel,
> > but testing either speaker produces no sound.
> > 
> > The Gentoo wiki was helpful in getting everything I need (well, I thought
> > I
> > had), but still I seem to be missing one link in the chain.
> > 
> > (I still have the old M-Audio speakers with their line-in, but so far I've
> > lost two motherboard sound chips and two USB dongles while using them, so
> > I
> > wanted to try something else.)

I've never had speakers blowing the audio chips driving them.  I would have 
thought they would be protected electrically from such events occurring.  
Anyway, more to the point, I had tried to configure a laptop to connect over 
bluetooth to an AVR, but I couldn't get it to work until I installed and used 
net-wireless/blueman.  You may want to give it a spin.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday, 5 May 2022 21:37:12 BST Michael wrote:

> I've never had speakers blowing the audio chips driving them.  I would have
> thought they would be protected electrically from such events occurring.

The sound chips have failed on both my workstations' motherboards over the 
last five years or so. They only seem to last a couple of years. Each time I've 
plugged in a USB dongle instead, and both of those have now failed. Or perhaps 
it's the speakers and their amplifiers.

> Anyway, more to the point, I had tried to configure a laptop to connect over
> bluetooth to an AVR, but I couldn't get it to work until I installed and
> used net-wireless/blueman.  You may want to give it a spin.

I will. Thank you. And Jack too.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

[gentoo-user] Re: Bluetooth speakers

[Grant Edwards]

On 2022-05-06, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thursday, 5 May 2022 21:37:12 BST Michael wrote:
>
>> I've never had speakers blowing the audio chips driving them.  I
>> would have thought they would be protected electrically from such
>> events occurring.

I doubt there is much protection on line-out connections.

> The sound chips have failed on both my workstations' motherboards
> over the last five years or so. They only seem to last a couple of
> years. Each time I've plugged in a USB dongle instead, and both of
> those have now failed.

That's very odd.

> Or perhaps it's the speakers and their amplifiers.

IMO, that's the logical conclusion.

I've never had the audio chip on any computer fail -- ever. Nor have I
ever had a USB audio adapter fail (though I've only used a couple of
them over the years).

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 6 May 2022 13:24:53 BST Grant Edwards wrote:

> > Or perhaps it's the speakers and their amplifiers.
> 
> IMO, that's the logical conclusion.

Whence my optimism in replacing them.

> I've never had the audio chip on any computer fail -- ever. Nor have I
> ever had a USB audio adapter fail (though I've only used a couple of
> them over the years).

Hmm.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Bluetooth speakers

[Daniel Frey]

On 2022-05-06 05:24, Grant Edwards wrote:
>> Or perhaps it's the speakers and their amplifiers.
> 
> IMO, that's the logical conclusion.
> 
> I've never had the audio chip on any computer fail -- ever. Nor have I
> ever had a USB audio adapter fail (though I've only used a couple of
> them over the years).
> 

I've never had an audio chip of any sort fail either on any of my 
computers. Even the ones plugged into my Denon AVR in the den - my old 
computer was 13-14 years old when I replaced it a couple years ago and 
it was used everyday with the AVR.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 6 May 2022 08:59:33 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Thursday, 5 May 2022 21:37:12 BST Michael wrote:
> > I've never had speakers blowing the audio chips driving them.  I would
> > have
> > thought they would be protected electrically from such events occurring.
> 
> The sound chips have failed on both my workstations' motherboards over the
> last five years or so. They only seem to last a couple of years. Each time
> I've plugged in a USB dongle instead, and both of those have now failed. Or
> perhaps it's the speakers and their amplifiers.
> 
> > Anyway, more to the point, I had tried to configure a laptop to connect
> > over bluetooth to an AVR, but I couldn't get it to work until I installed
> > and used net-wireless/blueman.  You may want to give it a spin.
> 
> I will. Thank you. And Jack too.

No joy. I get the same result: "blueman.bluez.errors.DBusFailedError:  br-
connection-profile-unavailable"

So far none of the remedies offered on the web have helped. What would help is 
some idea of how the whole BT system works, but the more I look the more 
complex it seems.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Jack]

On 2022.05.07 13:02, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Friday, 6 May 2022 08:59:33 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > On Thursday, 5 May 2022 21:37:12 BST Michael wrote:
>>> I've never had speakers blowing the audio chips driving them.  I  
>>> would have thought they would be protected electrically from such  
>>> events occurring.
> >
>> The sound chips have failed on both my workstations' motherboards  
>> over the last five years or so. They only seem to last a couple of  
>> years. Each time I've plugged in a USB dongle instead, and both of  
>> those have now failed. Or perhaps it's the speakers and their  
>> amplifiers.
> >
>>> Anyway, more to the point, I had tried to configure a laptop to  
>>> connect over bluetooth to an AVR, but I couldn't get it to work  
>>> until I installed and used net-wireless/blueman.  You may want to  
>>> give it a spin.
> >
> > I will. Thank you. And Jack too.
> 
> No joy. I get the same result:  
> "blueman.bluez.errors.DBusFailedError:  br-  
> connection-profile-unavailable"
> 
> So far none of the remedies offered on the web have helped. What  
> would help is some idea of how the whole BT system works, but the  
> more I look the more complex it seems.
Not a direct help, but maybe it will trigger some ideas - the only time  
I've seen any message about bluetooth profiles has been with a pair of  
noise-canceling headphones.  They work fine for either "High Fidelity  
PLAYBACK (A2DP Sink)" or "Handsfree Head Unit (HFP)" but the last  
profile is always "Headset Head Unit (HSP) (unavailable)".   These are  
all in the dropdown for the headset in the pulseaudio voluime control  
app, once the device is connected.   I just connected my BT speaker,  
and it only shows the first two profiles, so at least it appears to  
recognizes that it doesn't have a mic.  You should be able to get  
similar info from the bluetoothctl command.

Jack

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday, 7 May 2022 20:32:19 BST Jack wrote:

> Not a direct help, but maybe it will trigger some ideas - the only time
> I've seen any message about bluetooth profiles has been with a pair of
> noise-canceling headphones.  They work fine for either "High Fidelity
> PLAYBACK (A2DP Sink)" or "Handsfree Head Unit (HFP)" but the last
> profile is always "Headset Head Unit (HSP) (unavailable)".   These are
> all in the dropdown for the headset in the pulseaudio voluime control
> app, once the device is connected.   I just connected my BT speaker,
> and it only shows the first two profiles, so at least it appears to
> recognizes that it doesn't have a mic.  You should be able to get
> similar info from the bluetoothctl command.

Thanks anyway, Jack, but I just can't get it to work. I think I'll just have 
to go back to the old 3.5mm jack connector.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[karl]

Peter:
...
> What would help is some idea of how the whole BT system works,
...

There are two incompatible types of bluetooth:
 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
 Bluetooth Classic
see:
 https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/tech-overview/

You must check which generation of bluetooth your speaker uses.
If your speaker uses the classic type, this might help you:
 https://wiki.debian.org/Bluetooth/Alsa

///

More info about bluetooth:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth
 https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/

///

Current linux bluetooth tools (http://www.bluez.org/) doesn't
handle bluetooth classic, unless you build bluez with
--enable-deprecated configure option.
 Also, bluez has dropped direct /dev file access for users, you
have to set up and go through dbus regardless wether you like it
or not.

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Michael]

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On Monday, 9 May 2022 14:56:42 BST karl@aspodata.se wrote:
> Peter:
> ...
> 
> > What would help is some idea of how the whole BT system works,
> 
> ...
> 
> There are two incompatible types of bluetooth:
>  Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
>  Bluetooth Classic
> see:
>  https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/tech-overview/
> 
> You must check which generation of bluetooth your speaker uses.
> If your speaker uses the classic type, this might help you:
>  https://wiki.debian.org/Bluetooth/Alsa
> 
> ///
> 
> More info about bluetooth:
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth
>  https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/
> 
> ///
> 
> Current linux bluetooth tools (http://www.bluez.org/) doesn't
> handle bluetooth classic, unless you build bluez with
> --enable-deprecated configure option.
>  Also, bluez has dropped direct /dev file access for users, you
> have to set up and go through dbus regardless wether you like it
> or not.
> 
> Regards,
> /Karl Hammar

I've met some success getting BT to work and I tend to follow these basic 
steps:

1. Configure the kernel according to the BT chipset available on the PC.

2. Power the BT chip by using whatever hardware button is available and check 
dmesg identified the device and loaded whatever module and firmware is 
necessary.

3. Use 'rfkill list' to check the device is not blocked and unblock it if 
necessary.

4. Run 'rc-service -v bluetooth start'.

5. Run 'bluetoothctl' to scan, list, pair and trust any peripherals  - 
exchange a PIN to facilitate pairing as necessary.

These steps should be relatively easy to complete and GUI tools are also 
available to assist with the above.  Any problems thereafter are userspace 
related, i.e. whether the applications I use will be able to work with the BT 
peripherals.  Audio has been problematic on a particular use case, where 
neither alsa (bluez-alsa), nor pulseaudio allowed me to output audio via BT.  
Eventually I tried blueman which after a couple of restarts helped pulseaudio 
to recognise the device and output audio through it.

In all cases I prefer cables to temperamental radio connectivity and where 
quality matters, like it can be in some audio applications, I would seek to 
connect with a cable.

HTH

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Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Monday, 9 May 2022 15:38:30 BST Michael wrote:
> On Monday, 9 May 2022 14:56:42 BST karl@aspodata.se wrote:
> > Peter:
> > ...
> > 
> > > What would help is some idea of how the whole BT system works,
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > There are two incompatible types of bluetooth:
> >  Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
> >  Bluetooth Classic
> > 
> > see:
> >  https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/tech-overview/
> > 
> > You must check which generation of bluetooth your speaker uses.
> > 
> > If your speaker uses the classic type, this might help you:
> >  https://wiki.debian.org/Bluetooth/Alsa
> > 
> > ///
> > 
> > More info about bluetooth:
> >  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth
> >  https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/
> > 
> > ///
> > 
> > Current linux bluetooth tools (http://www.bluez.org/) doesn't
> > handle bluetooth classic, unless you build bluez with
> > --enable-deprecated configure option.
> > 
> >  Also, bluez has dropped direct /dev file access for users, you
> > 
> > have to set up and go through dbus regardless wether you like it
> > or not.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > /Karl Hammar
> 
> I've met some success getting BT to work and I tend to follow these basic
> steps:
> 
> 1. Configure the kernel according to the BT chipset available on the PC.
> 
> 2. Power the BT chip by using whatever hardware button is available and
> check dmesg identified the device and loaded whatever module and firmware
> is necessary.
> 
> 3. Use 'rfkill list' to check the device is not blocked and unblock it if
> necessary.
> 
> 4. Run 'rc-service -v bluetooth start'.
> 
> 5. Run 'bluetoothctl' to scan, list, pair and trust any peripherals  -
> exchange a PIN to facilitate pairing as necessary.
> 
> These steps should be relatively easy to complete and GUI tools are also
> available to assist with the above.  Any problems thereafter are userspace
> related, i.e. whether the applications I use will be able to work with the
> BT peripherals.  Audio has been problematic on a particular use case, where
> neither alsa (bluez-alsa), nor pulseaudio allowed me to output audio via
> BT. Eventually I tried blueman which after a couple of restarts helped
> pulseaudio to recognise the device and output audio through it.

Yes, I went through all that, just as you said, but still I got no sound.

> In all cases I prefer cables to temperamental radio connectivity and where
> quality matters, like it can be in some audio applications, I would seek to
> connect with a cable.

Indeed, and I've now replaced the speakers, the 3.5mm cable and the USB 
dongle - every sound component is new. When I tested it yesterday in the 
plasma control panel, I heard one "front left", very loud, and then nothing. I 
thought some BT stuff must still be lying around somewhere, so I've installed a 
new system from scratch, using a kernel .config from before I started with BT, 
and today I still hear no sound.

This seems like witchcraft now.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Michael]

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On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 09:17:32 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:

> Indeed, and I've now replaced the speakers, the 3.5mm cable and the USB
> dongle - every sound component is new. When I tested it yesterday in the
> plasma control panel, I heard one "front left", very loud, and then nothing.
> I thought some BT stuff must still be lying around somewhere, so I've
> installed a new system from scratch, using a kernel .config from before I
> started with BT, and today I still hear no sound.
> 
> This seems like witchcraft now.

Before you start ritual exorcisms, have you checked you are using the correct 
3.5mm jack and it is inserted properly?  See below:

Jacks have a TS, or TRS, TRRS, or TRRRS contacts arrangement, depending on the 
connectivity they are meant to offer - mono, stereo, stereo+mic and whether 
this is balanced or unbalanced.

Once I plugged in earphones (earbuds) with a 3.5mm jack in a MoBo and ended up 
with my ears getting uncomfortably warm in seconds.  Whatever voltage that 
MoBo was applying to the 3.5mm socket was far too high.  The earphones were 
fried while I was scratching my head trying to understand how could this have 
happened.  I made a mental note never to trust the thin clients provided by my 
employer.

Some times the construction of the spring loaded contacts in a plug is so 
poor, a correctly inserted jack does not provide a good and reliable 
electrical contact.  I'm running a desktop presently where I have to be 
careful how far in I push a 3.5mm stereo jack, to be able to obtain both 
stereo channels audio from the speakers.  Annoying as this is, I have to 
fettle with the jack to find the exact position at which I am able to get 
audio from both channels without distortion.

Despite the above mishaps I generally opt for a cable rather than BT for 
audio.  YMMV.

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3.5mm jacks (was Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers)

[karl]

Michael:
...
> Jacks have a TS, or TRS, TRRS, or TRRRS contacts arrangement, depending on the 
> connectivity they are meant to offer - mono, stereo, stereo+mic and whether 
> this is balanced or unbalanced.
...

I have an old laptop (Thinkpad T61p [1]) with a stereo and
microphone jack, both 3.5mm.

How do one know if it is a TRS or TRRS variant without opening the
case ?

Maybe it is a trrs jack since when I inserts a trs cable (to speaker)
the ouput sound whines a lot, mostly masking the intended sound.

I found some specs in [2] and [3].

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

[1] https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:T61p
[2] https://www.headphonesty.com/2019/04/headphone-jacks-plugs-explained/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)

Re: 3.5mm jacks (was Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers)

[Michael]

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On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 11:29:51 BST karl@aspodata.se wrote:
> Michael:
> ...
> 
> > Jacks have a TS, or TRS, TRRS, or TRRRS contacts arrangement, depending on
> > the connectivity they are meant to offer - mono, stereo, stereo+mic and
> > whether this is balanced or unbalanced.
> 
> ...
> 
> I have an old laptop (Thinkpad T61p [1]) with a stereo and
> microphone jack, both 3.5mm.
> 
> How do one know if it is a TRS or TRRS variant without opening the
> case ?
> 
> Maybe it is a trrs jack since when I inserts a trs cable (to speaker)
> the ouput sound whines a lot, mostly masking the intended sound.
> 
> I found some specs in [2] and [3].
> 
> Regards,
> /Karl Hammar
> 
> [1] https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:T61p
> [2] https://www.headphonesty.com/2019/04/headphone-jacks-plugs-explained/
> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)

I'm not familiar with the specifics of your laptop.  It is a matter of digging 
through spec sheets to find out, or opening up the case, but often the socket 
is enclosed in a plastic molding.  Checking part numbers may reveal what the 
contacts arrangement is.

If you're only getting one channel audio or noise/distortion, after the jack 
has been inserted fully, then it is likely you have a mismatch between the 
jack & socket contacts.  In all likelihood you have a TRRS line-out for stereo 
earphones and perhaps a TRS line-in for mic mono.

Sadly there is a historical mismatch between different manufacturers' pin 
arrangements, especially so with camcorders and old portable DVD players 
(remember those?!)  So there's no guarantee some mic or earphones released by 
one manufacturer will always work with other devices.  The contacts look the 
same, but the ground and live connections could be reversed.  With PCs the 
contacts tend to be more standardised.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 10:26:13 BST Michael wrote:
> On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 09:17:32 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Indeed, and I've now replaced the speakers, the 3.5mm cable and the USB
> > dongle - every sound component is new. When I tested it yesterday in the
> > plasma control panel, I heard one "front left", very loud, and then
> > nothing. I thought some BT stuff must still be lying around somewhere, so
> > I've installed a new system from scratch, using a kernel .config from
> > before I started with BT, and today I still hear no sound.
> > 
> > This seems like witchcraft now.
> 
> Before you start ritual exorcisms, have you checked you are using the
> correct 3.5mm jack and it is inserted properly?  See below:

I thought of the easy check, eventually. I booted into Windows 10 and was 
immediately greeted with its bing-bong-bong sound - over the 3.5mm jack 
connection.

So now I just have to find out what's wrong with my plasma sound system.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Michael]

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On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 13:00:13 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 10:26:13 BST Michael wrote:
> > On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 09:17:32 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > Indeed, and I've now replaced the speakers, the 3.5mm cable and the USB
> > > dongle - every sound component is new. When I tested it yesterday in the
> > > plasma control panel, I heard one "front left", very loud, and then
> > > nothing. I thought some BT stuff must still be lying around somewhere,
> > > so
> > > I've installed a new system from scratch, using a kernel .config from
> > > before I started with BT, and today I still hear no sound.
> > > 
> > > This seems like witchcraft now.
> > 
> > Before you start ritual exorcisms, have you checked you are using the
> 
> > correct 3.5mm jack and it is inserted properly?  See below:
> I thought of the easy check, eventually. I booted into Windows 10 and was
> immediately greeted with its bing-bong-bong sound - over the 3.5mm jack
> connection.
> 
> So now I just have to find out what's wrong with my plasma sound system.

In the late 90s early 00s I had a Compaq laptop which occasionally will fail 
to produce any audio output.  Booting into Windows would on its own unlock the 
audio and allow me to enjoy my audio card on Linux once more, until the next 
time.

I never bottomed out what was causing this, but I developed a theory of a 
dodgy Linux alsa driver which would trip over itself when it tried to 
initialise the audio device and an always-working-as-intended MSWindows audio 
driver.

Anyway, isn't pulseaudio being replaced by the Pipewire framework?  I 
understand Pipewire is meant to work better with BT audio and A2DP codecs, but 
I don't know how well it works on Plasma.

I haven't installed pulseaudio on this PC, but pipewire seems to be running on 
a Plasma desktop:

$ ps axf | grep -i pipe
 4274 tty8     Sl+    0:00                  |   \_ /usr/bin/pipewire
 4275 tty8     Sl+    0:00                  |   \_ /usr/bin/pipewire -c 
pipewire-pulse.conf
15917 pts/1    S+     0:00      \_ grep -E --colour=auto --color=auto -i pipe


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Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 13:00:13 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:

> So now I just have to find out what's wrong with my plasma sound system.

Sound works just fine (wired connection) if I create a new user account and log 
in there, but by the time I've finished adjusting everything to my preferences, 
and setting up KMail and Firefox, it's gone again.

What can possibly be in my $HOME to cause malfunctioning of system services? I 
was also among the first to suffer unclean shutdown of Konsole, which seems to 
have a similar cause:
1.	https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=819459
2.	https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=445862

I'm not looking forward to the debugging this suggests, so I hope someone can 
offer a suggestion.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Monday, 9 May 2022 15:38:30 BST Michael wrote:
> On Monday, 9 May 2022 14:56:42 BST karl@aspodata.se wrote:
> > Peter:
> > ...
> > 
> > > What would help is some idea of how the whole BT system works,
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > There are two incompatible types of bluetooth:
> >  Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
> >  Bluetooth Classic
> > 
> > see:
> >  https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/tech-overview/
> > 
> > You must check which generation of bluetooth your speaker uses.
> > 
> > If your speaker uses the classic type, this might help you:
> >  https://wiki.debian.org/Bluetooth/Alsa
> > 
> > ///
> > 
> > More info about bluetooth:
> >  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth
> >  https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/
> > 
> > ///
> > 
> > Current linux bluetooth tools (http://www.bluez.org/) doesn't
> > handle bluetooth classic, unless you build bluez with
> > --enable-deprecated configure option.
> > 
> >  Also, bluez has dropped direct /dev file access for users, you
> > 
> > have to set up and go through dbus regardless wether you like it
> > or not.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > /Karl Hammar
> 
> I've met some success getting BT to work and I tend to follow these basic
> steps:
> 
> 1. Configure the kernel according to the BT chipset available on the PC.
> 
> 2. Power the BT chip by using whatever hardware button is available and
> check dmesg identified the device and loaded whatever module and firmware
> is necessary.
> 
> 3. Use 'rfkill list' to check the device is not blocked and unblock it if
> necessary.
> 
> 4. Run 'rc-service -v bluetooth start'.
> 
> 5. Run 'bluetoothctl' to scan, list, pair and trust any peripherals  -
> exchange a PIN to facilitate pairing as necessary.
> 
> These steps should be relatively easy to complete and GUI tools are also
> available to assist with the above.  Any problems thereafter are userspace
> related, i.e. whether the applications I use will be able to work with the
> BT peripherals.  Audio has been problematic on a particular use case, where
> neither alsa (bluez-alsa), nor pulseaudio allowed me to output audio via
> BT. Eventually I tried blueman which after a couple of restarts helped
> pulseaudio to recognise the device and output audio through it.

Yes, I went through all that, just as you said, but still I got no sound.

> In all cases I prefer cables to temperamental radio connectivity and where
> quality matters, like it can be in some audio applications, I would seek to
> connect with a cable.

Indeed, and I've now replaced the speakers, the 3.5mm cable and the USB 
dongle - every sound component is new. When I tested it yesterday in the 
plasma control panel, I heard one "front left", very loud, and then nothing. I 
thought some BT stuff must still be lying around somewhere, so I've installed a 
new system from scratch, using a kernel .config from before I started with BT, 
and today I still hear no sound.

This seems like witchcraft now.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday, 10 May 2022 09:17:32 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:

> This seems like witchcraft now.

Apologies for the duplicate message. I'm still wrestling with sound, and 
creating user directories and recovering email backups.

I'm leaning towards concluding that there's no way to have sound on this 
machine any more. At every stage in setting up yet another new user account, 
together with mail, browser etc., I log out and in again to check that I still 
have (wired) sound. No problem until the first reboot, then no sound again.

I don't know what the KDE team have done, but some configuration variable or 
other is killing some system services: sound, and unclean shutdown of Konsole:

1.  https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=819459
2.  https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=445862

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 12 May 2022 11:01:33 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> I'm leaning towards concluding that there's no way to have sound on
> this machine any more. At every stage in setting up yet another new
> user account, together with mail, browser etc., I log out and in again
> to check that I still have (wired) sound. No problem until the first
> reboot, then no sound again.
> 
> I don't know what the KDE team have done, but some configuration
> variable or other is killing some system services: sound, and unclean
> shutdown of Konsole:

Have you tried setting up a new user that doesn't use KDE? That would
help decide if kgremlins are at play.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

WinErr 020: Error recording error codes - Additional errors will be lost.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday, 12 May 2022 14:49:07 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:

> Have you tried setting up a new user that doesn't use KDE? That would
> help decide if kgremlins are at play.

Good idea - thanks Neil. Don't hold your breath though...  :)

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

[SOLVED]Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday, 5 May 2022 16:22:56 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:

> Is there a knack to getting my plasma desktop to operate happily with my new
> Bluetooth speakers? I can get a connection using the Bluetooth control
> panel, and the sound device appears in the Audio control panel, but testing
> either speaker produces no sound.

I think I've solved the problem. No, not BT but with a wired connection I do 
now have sound. BT can wait until I need it.

The fix was to build a new system without any extra USE flags, i.e. non other 
than what's in the plasma profile. Now it Just Works.

For completeness, these are the flags I removed from make.conf:

	gpg gpm gstreamer handbook icu postscript pulseaudio qml

I can only suppose that some of those were fighting others. I still have quite 
a few package-specific USE flags; I'll review all those as well.

Thanks to all who helped.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [SOLVED]Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday, 14 May 2022 17:34:58 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Thursday, 5 May 2022 16:22:56 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Is there a knack to getting my plasma desktop to operate happily with my
> > new Bluetooth speakers? I can get a connection using the Bluetooth
> > control panel, and the sound device appears in the Audio control panel,
> > but testing either speaker produces no sound.
> 
> I think I've solved the problem. No, not BT but with a wired connection I do
> now have sound. BT can wait until I need it.

Wrong again. In fact, the problem was that pulseaudio was not running. A 
simple 'pulseaudio start' - et voila! Sound.

I found this along the way:

# pulseaudio --dump-conf
### Read from configuration file: /etc/pulse/daemon.conf ###
daemonize = no
[...]

Why is it set to No by default? Isn't PA deaf without the daemon running?

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [SOLVED]Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Michael]

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On Wednesday, 18 May 2022 09:51:57 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Saturday, 14 May 2022 17:34:58 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > On Thursday, 5 May 2022 16:22:56 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > Is there a knack to getting my plasma desktop to operate happily with my
> > > new Bluetooth speakers? I can get a connection using the Bluetooth
> > > control panel, and the sound device appears in the Audio control panel,
> > > but testing either speaker produces no sound.
> > 
> > I think I've solved the problem. No, not BT but with a wired connection I
> > do now have sound. BT can wait until I need it.
> 
> Wrong again. In fact, the problem was that pulseaudio was not running. A
> simple 'pulseaudio start' - et voila! Sound.
> 
> I found this along the way:
> 
> # pulseaudio --dump-conf
> ### Read from configuration file: /etc/pulse/daemon.conf ###
> daemonize = no
> [...]
> 
> Why is it set to No by default? Isn't PA deaf without the daemon running?

Pulseaudio is currently set to "daemonize = no" by default and it should also 
be set "autospawn = no", in order for Plasma to use pipewire instead of 
pulseaudio.   Pipewire is the new audio solution, which is meant to satisfy 
use cases previously addressed with pulseaudio and/or jack, although it should 
co-exist and work with both regardless.

As I understand it originally udev would probe, auto-detect and hotplug 
devices, calling pulseaudio to process audio.  I am not up to speed how 
pipewire now interacts with pulseaudio in depth, but I can see on a Plasma 
system which has pulseaudio installed, pipewire is launched and uses pipewire-
pulse.conf:

                  \_ /usr/bin/wireplumber
                      \_ /usr/bin/pipewire
                      \_ /usr/bin/pipewire -c pipewire-pulse.conf

I have audio working, but no pulseaudio process shows up.

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Re: [SOLVED]Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday, 18 May 2022 11:02:21 BST Michael wrote:
> On Wednesday, 18 May 2022 09:51:57 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > On Saturday, 14 May 2022 17:34:58 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > On Thursday, 5 May 2022 16:22:56 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > > Is there a knack to getting my plasma desktop to operate happily with
> > > > my
> > > > new Bluetooth speakers? I can get a connection using the Bluetooth
> > > > control panel, and the sound device appears in the Audio control
> > > > panel,
> > > > but testing either speaker produces no sound.
> > > 
> > > I think I've solved the problem. No, not BT but with a wired connection
> > > I
> > > do now have sound. BT can wait until I need it.
> > 
> > Wrong again. In fact, the problem was that pulseaudio was not running. A
> > simple 'pulseaudio start' - et voila! Sound.
> > 
> > I found this along the way:
> > 
> > # pulseaudio --dump-conf
> > ### Read from configuration file: /etc/pulse/daemon.conf ###
> > daemonize = no
> > [...]
> > 
> > Why is it set to No by default? Isn't PA deaf without the daemon running?
> 
> Pulseaudio is currently set to "daemonize = no" by default and it should
> also be set "autospawn = no", in order for Plasma to use pipewire instead
> of pulseaudio.   Pipewire is the new audio solution, which is meant to
> satisfy use cases previously addressed with pulseaudio and/or jack,
> although it should co-exist and work with both regardless.
> 
> As I understand it originally udev would probe, auto-detect and hotplug
> devices, calling pulseaudio to process audio.  I am not up to speed how
> pipewire now interacts with pulseaudio in depth, but I can see on a Plasma
> system which has pulseaudio installed, pipewire is launched and uses
> pipewire- pulse.conf:
> 
>                   \_ /usr/bin/wireplumber
>                       \_ /usr/bin/pipewire
>                       \_ /usr/bin/pipewire -c pipewire-pulse.conf
> 
> I have audio working, but no pulseaudio process shows up.

Somewhere around here I said I had too many USE flag staatements under /etc/
portage, so I removed package.use and just set whatever flags were needed to 
install all my packages. That was fine, but it meant that USE=pulseaudio was 
only set on alsa-plugins, which was fine as far as it went, but nothing else 
could use PA. Now that I've put pulseaudio back into make.conf and recompiled, 
I hope for a quieter life, if you see what I mean...

Thanks again for everyone's patience.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [SOLVED]Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Michael]

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On Wednesday, 18 May 2022 15:22:07 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:

> Somewhere around here I said I had too many USE flag staatements under /etc/
> portage, so I removed package.use and just set whatever flags were needed
> to install all my packages. That was fine, but it meant that USE=pulseaudio
> was only set on alsa-plugins, which was fine as far as it went, but nothing
> else could use PA. Now that I've put pulseaudio back into make.conf and
> recompiled, I hope for a quieter life, if you see what I mean...
> 
> Thanks again for everyone's patience.

Glad you got it working.  There's a global 'pulseaudio' USE flag, as well as 
some local 'pulseaudio' USE flags.  If you run 'euse -i pulseaudio' you'll see 
from the output a global flag is needed.  I'm not on a pulseaudio enabled 
system at the moment to check what I have set up here.

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Re: [SOLVED]Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Wol]

On 18/05/2022 15:22, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Somewhere around here I said I had too many USE flag staatements under/etc/
> portage, so I removed package.use and just set whatever flags were needed to
> install all my packages.

If you make package.use a directory, you can do what I do, and try to 
have one file in package.use for each package I actually want installed. 
And if you qualify the packages with "current version" however you do 
that, then they'll expire regularly so you're forced to keep it 
up-to-date :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [SOLVED]Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday, 18 May 2022 22:26:44 BST Wol wrote:
> On 18/05/2022 15:22, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Somewhere around here I said I had too many USE flag staatements
> > under/etc/
> > portage, so I removed package.use and just set whatever flags were needed
> > to install all my packages.
> 
> If you make package.use a directory, you can do what I do, and try to
> have one file in package.use for each package I actually want installed.
> And if you qualify the packages with "current version" however you do
> that, then they'll expire regularly so you're forced to keep it
> up-to-date :-)

Yes, I do the same. I did wonder at the large number of files under 
package.use, though, which is why I thought it a good idea to prune them a 
bit. The consequences just spread further than I expected.   :(

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

FIXED Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday, 5 May 2022 16:22:56 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> Is there a knack to getting my plasma desktop to operate happily with my new
> Bluetooth speakers? I can get a connection using the Bluetooth control
> panel, and the sound device appears in the Audio control panel, but testing
> either speaker produces no sound.
> 
> The Gentoo wiki was helpful in getting everything I need (well, I thought I
> had), but still I seem to be missing one link in the chain.
> 
> (I still have the old M-Audio speakers with their line-in, but so far I've
> lost two motherboard sound chips and two USB dongles while using them, so I
> wanted to try something else.)

The root cause was simple: i was not in the audio group. I always used to be, 
but sometime when installing a new system (yet again) I must have dropped it 
when creating my user.

Now, where's that humble pie?

-- 
Regards,
Peter.