Bluetooth on Macbook with Debian Squeeze
 

Greetings,

I have an old(ish) Macbook laptop. It comes with built-in bluetooth. The box says "Built-in Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)".

I'm not sure if it interfaces via USB or not, but I do not see any bluetooth stuff via lsusb. I do see bluetooth stuff when looking at dmesg. But when I look at hciconfig I see nothing at all. Here's what I get with the various commands:

#lsusb
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 05ac:8240 Apple, Inc. IR Receiver [built-in]
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 05ac:021a Apple, Inc. Internal Keyboard/Trackpad (ANSI)
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05ac:8501 Apple, Inc. Built-in iSight [Micron]
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

#hciconfig (nothing returns at all)

#dmesg | grep Blue (the post is too long without the "grep")
[ 14.943021] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.15
[ 14.943103] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[ 14.943107] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[ 15.168937] Bluetooth: L2CAP ver 2.14
[ 15.168942] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[ 15.309507] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[ 15.309512] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[ 15.316361] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[ 15.316367] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[ 15.316371] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11
[ 15.706584] Bluetooth: SCO (Voice Link) ver 0.6
[ 15.706589] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized

I'll post the whole dmesg across two posts if it will help...

Any thoughts as to what to try next?

Hi mrider, Welcome to LQ. Does the machine have a bluetooth toggle? Perhaps a switch or Fn key combination that turns it on and off?

Good luck. ;-)

Thanks - although I've been a "member" since 2006. I use member in quotes because I hardly ever post (everyone else always knows more than I), and I only have questions occasionally because most everything I need to know is already answered, I just need to search. I lurk a lot though. :)

Not that I know of, but you have a point. I'll take a closer look and see. That would be nice.

I'm about halfway convinced to just go out and buy a USB dongle. But I'll look around on the machine and the instructions.


Thanks!!

It's starting to look as if there's something wrong with the built in Bluetooth adapter. I've never used Bluetooth to the computer before, never had any need. However, I'm trying to get pictures off a cell phone that does not have a USB port - so now I need to try.


I guess I'll be buying a Bluetooth USB dongle in the next week or two. Thanks for trying. I'll post back in a week or two to update the status...

On some machines the bluetooth can be enabled and disabled in the bios. What distribution are using?

Good luck. ;-)

It's a MacBook running Debian squeeze, so no "BIOS". I didn't post this, but I drug out my old HDD that has OSX on it and booted it up and tried troubleshooting from there. A bit of Googling and thrashing later, and I can't get OSX to see the Bluetooth either. I found this rather long thread http://discussions.info.apple.com/th...art=0&tstart=0, and tried everything mentioned there - reset the PRAM, reset the SMC, etcetera. OSX's hardware listing always shows "Bluetooth not available".

So as I say, I'm pretty sure the Bluetooth circuitry itself is dead. I have a Bluetooth dongle in my Amazon wish list while I look around. I'll probably just purchase that dongle or one like it. FWIW, I'll probably get the IOGEAR USB 2.1 Bluetooth Micro Adapter GBU42 if anyone has any experience with that. I figure it strikes a good balance between the $50 and $.50 polar ends of the selection.

Agreed, it sounds like dead hardware. On a positive note, the IOGear GBU42 has worked well for me in the past.

Good luck. ;-)