Dave’s Occasional Brainfart

Ubuntu Gutsy Bluetooth #2

After getting bluetooth devices connected and talking to the PC it was time to get them to connect and talk automagically. Using the power of teh internets and some trial and error I discovered how.

Firstly I added each device to the /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf file

device <MAC Address> {
name “Logitech diNovo Keyboard”
auth enable;
encrypt enable;
}

device <MAC Address> {
name “Logitech Mediapad”
auth enable;
encrypt enable;
}

device <MAC Address> {
name “Logitech MX1000 mouse”
}

I have no idea if the  auth and encrypt lines are required. but it works and I’m lazy so I’m not going to go experimenting turning them off.

In the options setting in the same file I have the following settings.

autoinit yes;

security auto;

pairing multi;

passkey “12345″;

Then edit /etc/default/bluetooth

and set

HIDD_ENABLED=1

On reboot your pc should now automagically connect to the devices.

No idea what is or is not necessary. but this is working.

Note: Devices need to negotiate a connection so when you first move the mouse or hit a key it will start up a connection to the machine. This takes a second or so and means what you type wont show up straight away. You will need to wait a bit.

I want this to happen, rather than forcing a connection at boot every time, because I have a laptop. The laptop moves but the keyboard & mouse don’t always go with me.

I believe you can force a connection everytime by altering HIDD_OPTIONS

and putting in a -i <MAC Address> for each device. I think this will cause the laptop to time out if the device isn’t present and active on boot however.

Ubuntu Gutsy Bluetooth

Along with the WiFi issue there are also problems with Bluetooth from a usability side. There is no graphical manager to handle the installation/paring of bluetooth devices and you need to use the command line. Which is a pain.

To get my shiny Logitech DiNovo keyboard/mouse set working I had to figure out how to do it from the command line.

Thankfully there are a lot of others out there with the same issue.

First put your devices in discovery mode.  At the command prompt type

hcitool scan

Which will try and find all the devices and give you their name & MAC address.  To pair them you can then type

sudo hidd –connect <MAC Address>

Which gives you a decent keyboard and mouse to use other than the laptop keyboard (which in my case is raised and a pain in the bum to use in it’s normal home.

Ubuntu Gutsy WiFi

I decided to toss in the towel on Vista because it was giving me the shits. So I installed Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 4 on my laptop (Dell Latitude D620).

Installs fine. no issues discovered initially.

However, when trying to connect to my home wireless (802.11G WPA2 Personal with hidden SSID) I find that the built in wireless manager doesn’t work.

Turns out that this is a known issue. From previous experiences I know there are ways around this editing config files and getting the wireless card to connect on boot but I don’t want a static wifi link on the laptop.

Instead I just turned the hidden SSID off and it connected without issues.