I have a USB bluetooth adapter to communicate with my mobile, but it is not detected. I have tried the default Mint Bluetooth utility, BlueMan and BlueWho.

I also tried a wireless mouse which works, but is not detected by these utilities.

Is there something else I can try?

It would be nice if you try to be more specific about the problem? What hardware chipset is it? Did you search if it's supported by the distro or require extra module? More details pls as nobody is mind-reader here

This is what the specification says, but I'm no expert so I don't know whether it specifies the chipset:
Product Name and Model
P1-PH1
Processor
Intel P4 up to 3.8 GHz (Northwood/Prescott)*
Socket 775
800/533 MHz


From my first post: "I have tried the default Mint Bluetooth utility". Perhaps I should avoid technical words, as I realise that this site is used by people whose first language is not English. To explain my statement - "Default" means in this context a piece of software which is installed automatically when you install the operating system. So by implication, yes, Bluetooth is supported by the Mint distro.

Nope. Feel free to use as many "technical terms" as you want. Even if english is not my mother-language, I did get your point.
I guess, we are all aware such modern distros as Mint or Ubuntu etc do support bloototh.
Anyway. I am not interested on what have you used to fire it up but rather what's going "under the hood" as likely with Linux.
So, to the point. I need output of your "lsusb" command.

Ok, here it is:

With mouse dongle only:
chris@Asus ~ $ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:2228 Standard Microsystems Corp. 9-in-2 Card Reader
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04fc:0538 Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd Wireless Optical Mouse 2.4G [Bright]
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

With mouse/keyboard dongle only:
chris@Asus ~ $ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:2228 Standard Microsystems Corp. 9-in-2 Card Reader
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 046d:c505 Logitech, Inc. Cordless Mouse+Keyboard Receiver
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

With Bluetooth dongle only:
chris@Asus ~ $ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:2228 Standard Microsystems Corp. 9-in-2 Card Reader
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

It looks like lsusb can see the first two but not the third, and the utilities can't see any of them.

Just a question:

is this an external usb bluetooth adapter or a built-in one ( i.e laptops, notebooks) ?

It seems the device is not detected by the system at all.
Let's see if kernel loads any of its modules

It's a plug in one which I bought locally, like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Signalex-M...item1c38e5bfe3

chris@Asus ~ $ dmesg |grep -i bluetooth
[ 22.113754] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.16
[ 22.113805] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[ 22.114538] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[ 22.114548] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[ 22.114567] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[ 22.156501] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[ 22.156509] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[ 22.156527] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[ 22.172551] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[ 22.172581] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[ 22.172587] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11

Just tried to google it around but it's likely no info can be found on this model when it comes to Linux support.
What I would do is:

a) unplug & plug the device
b) run "dmesg|tail" command right after
c) paste the output here

Maybe I can figure out what driver is used by the kernel to talk to your device, if any.

chris@Asus ~ $ dmesg|tail
[ 597.001061] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=046d, idProduct=c505
[ 597.001072] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 597.001079] usb 2-1: Product: USB Receiver
[ 597.001086] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: Logitech
[ 597.009407] input: Logitech USB Receiver as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.0/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0/input/input10
[ 597.009816] hid-generic 0003:046D:C505.0007: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [Logitech USB Receiver] on usb-0000:00:13.0-1/input0
[ 597.019665] input: Logitech USB Receiver as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.0/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.1/input/input11
[ 597.019959] hid-generic 0003:046D:C505.0008: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB Receiver] on usb-0000:00:13.0-1/input1
[ 2375.243506] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, device number 3
[ 3464.369149] perf samples too long (2519 > 2500), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 50000

I'm gonna take a deeper look on your issue Chris, but let me ask a question: Are you using laptop-mode conf? Do any of your usb devices suspend automatically by chance? I need to know, just to exclude possible causes.
Secondarily. Are you using an external hub to plug the dongle in? Have you tried to plug it directly to the ports and finally; Have you tried all of them?

I've no idea what this is, but this page https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop_Mode_Tools suggests that this command will show what the situation is:
chris@Asus ~ $ grep -r '^\(CONTROL\|ENABLE\)_' /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d
grep: /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d: No such file or directory

Not that I'm aware of.

No, I thought it would make things simpler if I plugged it straight in.

Yes - two on the back and two on the front of the PC.

Paste the output of following command Also,

it seems the logitech usb receivers lack driver support for Linux.
This website however, should help. It's a special utility for managing such devices and there's a chance your dongle chipset is supported. Happily, it is easy to install through ubuntu PPA.

Give it a try and update us on the results.
In case it doesn't work see this entry for future reference

3.11.0-12-generic

I have tried the first without result.

I wasn't able to follow the second as there were so many parallel themes.

I have found this, which looked promising, but didn't do anything... http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/12/l...r-linux-solaar

The only answer seems to be never to buy any peripherals manufactured by Logitech. I still don't understand why the Bluetooth managers don't see the other ones that the command-line utilities can see though.

Let's say the general rule to stick to is check if the hardware you're gonnna buy is fully supported prior to buying it.
Getting back to you Chris. What did you mean by "didn't do anything" ? Didi you get any logs? Have you tried launching solaar from console to see the output?
Can you provide more specific information please?