Sunday, December 14, 2008

Kubuntu 8.10 and Bluetooth

I am working on having the handset bluetooth to pair with my Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) via a bluetooth dongle. Purpose was to transfer files and use the remote control.

Kubuntu have installed the bluetooth stack called bluez by default. Kubuntu currently adviced to use the Gnome file transfer tool and it works. I am having reservations to keep this, cause the last time I did something similiar, nautilus and lots of other Gnome stuff was installed which made the KDE wobbly. E.g. sometimes the Nautilus gets launched instead of Konqueror or Dolphin.

Here are steps I have taken (bluetooth not fully working yet)
Verify that the Bluez stack is functioning
$ hcitool scan
Scanning ...
00:3E:E5:88:88:88 K810i tboxmy


Install the File transfer utility
sudo apt-get install obexftp scmxx

Install the CMAKE and Kubuntu development tools. Download kdebase-workspace-dev (~27Mb), CMAKE (~20Mb) and install.
$ sudo apt-get install kdebase-workspace-dev
$ sudo apt-get install cmake

Download KDEbluetooth4 (not included in Kubuntu Intrepid) from www.kde-aps.org then extract kdebludetooth4 and install.

$ cd kdebluetooth4-0.2/
$ cmake . -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr;
$ make
$ sudo make install

===output===
nicholas@tboxmy:~/sources/kdebluetooth4-0.2$ sudo make install
[ 73%] Built target kbluetooth4
[ 86%] Built target kbluetooth4-inputwizard
[100%] Built target kbluetooth4-devicemanager
Install the project...
-- Install configuration: "Debugfull"
-- Installing: /usr/bin/kbluetooth4
-- Installing: /usr/share/applications/kde4/kdebluetooth4.desktop
-- Installing: /usr/bin/kbluetooth4-inputwizard
-- Installing: /usr/bin/kbluetooth4-devicemanager
-- Up-to-date: /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/./kbluetooth4.png
-- Up-to-date: /usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/./kbluetooth4.png
-- Up-to-date: /usr/share/icons/hicolor/64x64/apps/./kbluetooth4.png

===end output===

Restart bluetooth
$ sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart

2 comments:

Abraham said...

currently, kubuntu 8.10 does not support bluetooth, however, there is a workaround using gnome utilities.
Release note for 8.10 :-
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntrepidReleaseNotes#Kubuntu Bluetooth support
full bug report:-
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase-workspace/+bug/280997

Tboxmy said...

makda,
thanks for the info.

I have already gone to the mentioned link but the switch between gnome and kde apps due to the use of bluetooth can be rather confusing for roll out to desktops where end users may not be technically inclined.

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