Re: [gentoo-user] Bluetooth speakers

[Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com>]

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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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