I just ordered a new cellular phone from Samsung that includes bluetooth support. The phone has picture, video, and mp3 capabilities and I would like to be able to transfer files to and from the phone.

I have three questions:

1. What hardware do I need to purchase for my PC to provide the bluetooth support (in other words, which bluetooth adapters are fully compatible with linux)?

2. What software do I need to install in order to transfer the files (or, can I mount the filesystem somehow)?

3. I have a custom kernel and often turn off features I'm not using, what kernel features do I need in order to support my new hardware and software?


Any help would be appreciated, specially from those who have used bluetooth cell phones with linux before.

Bluetooth is the shiznit, dead set.

First up, you need a USB Bluetooth adapter. Any brand name one should work, I've got a Dlink and two noname ones, I lucked out and one of the noname ones works under linux but if you want to be sure, I've never had any problems with Dlink. Then you need to install bluez-libs and bluez-utils. Make sure you change the value in /etc/bluetooth/pin to a sane value as a lot of phones only let you enter digits as a pin.

The easiest way to transfer stuff over Bluetooth is install Openobex, obexftp and obexfs. Obexfs is a FUSE filesystem so you'll need your kernel compiled with FUSE support and the helper app installed. The docs are pretty good, openobex.sf.net -> best of luck

Adapter, Transceiver, dongle are the same thing. I suggest MSI Star Key 2.0 because one reviewer from newegg.com saids that it works. Also from an engineering point of view, its sensitivity and transmit power is great for people that want to transfer data between a Bluetooth enabled device and the computer from a far distance. Though I have not yet used Bluetooth.

I suggest calling your cellphone provider to find out if there are any surcharges for picture, video, and sound transfers.

Howto:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_mobile_...ooth_and_GNOME

Thanks for the help guys. After reading the review on newegg, Im gonna go with that MSI, thanks for the suggestion. I'll be back in a few days if I can't get it working, but it sounds easy enough.

Thanks

If you are using KDE then you are in luck. You can install kbluetoothd which then lets you browse the phone over obex and easily transmit media (videos / pictures) from / to your phone. The kioslave completely rounds up an awesome package.