I have 2 bluetooth adaptors and 2 bluetooth headsets (a Motorola and a Samsung). I can't get any pair of them to pair up. hcitool scan can detect the headsets (as well as some neighbors') but pairing has never worked. Occasionally it reports a connection for a second then drops. I have taken both the adaptors and headsets to friends who have a computer with Windozzzze and gotten them to work.

lsusb returns:

Bus 002 Device 018: ID 1131:1001 Integrated System Solution Corp. KY-BT100 Bluetooth Adapter
Bus 002 Device 019: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)

hciconfig returns:

hci0: Type: BR/EDR Bus: USB
BD Address: 00:1F:81:00:02:50 ACL MTU: 1021:4 SCO MTU: 180:1
UP RUNNING PSCAN
RX bytes:972 acl:0 sco:0 events:28 errors:0
TX bytes:361 acl:0 sco:0 commands:27 errors:0

hci1: Type: BR/EDR Bus: USB
BD Address: 00:11:67:6B:77:2D ACL MTU: 678:8 SCO MTU: 48:10
UP RUNNING PSCAN
RX bytes:969 acl:0 sco:0 events:27 errors:0
TX bytes:361 acl:0 sco:0 commands:27 errors:0

I run Slackware (latest), kernel 2.6.33.4 on an eMachines e725-4520.

What software are you trying to use to connect the headsets? Blueman? Is there a specific error?

Don't bother with trying to pair the headsets and setup audio with hcitool or any of the other command line tools, that has always been unreliable and is only worse now under BlueZ 4.x.

BlueZ doesn't work? I didn't know I had any other choice. I'll check out blueman. Thanks.

Blueman seems to work! Yay! Now what do I do? Blueman detected the headset, tells me I connected successfully: how do I get audio to go to it? I can't find a new device in /dev or anything new in /proc. The headset is in /var/lib/bluetooth/(HostBluetoothID}, so it's been found.

Try a search on bluetooth alsa
I'd offer more specific advice, but I don't have bluetooth, so have nothing to test.