First, if you have questions like this, it’s super-easy to get answers in more immediate and helpful forums. There’s the venerable but still well-populated fedora-list, the general user forum on IRC Freenode at #fedora, and the large community at Fedora Forum, all of which can help with general user questions.
Having said that, in Fedora 11 this is remarkably easy. You just install the pulseaudio-module-bluetooth package, and use the existing Bluetooth applet to pair your audio device with your Fedora system. PulseAudio will be able to see and use your Bluetooth audio device. I’ve done this with my cheap-o little Motorola H500 earpiece and it worked like a charm. I didn’t try this in Fedora 10, but I believe that module exists there too.
i’m actually sort of excited by this. I’d like to make better use of the Fedora Talk VOIP service and being able to bluetooth audio into my computer should help.
Now if only Maemo would adopt the same functionality so I can bluetooth headset with the N810…..
-jef
The only down side to this is its only mono as far as I can tell no support for stereo bluetooth yet.
Thank you for this great reply! I tested it and it works really like a charm in Fedora 11!
I missed the mention of this feature anywhere in Fedora 11 features list, and this is more significant feature for average Fedora user than some of features mentioned there…
Regarding Fedora forum and other resources – as you have seen there are a quite a few people that wanted this but couldn’t made it work in Fedora 10, that is why I wrote a blog post.
@Zach: Not sure about that one — unfortunately I only have a mono earpiece, not a stereo headset, so I can’t test how well stereo works. But I am certain there is no PulseAudio limitation in this regard. Maybe someone who knows more about Bluetooth can tell us.
@Valent: The fedora-list would have been the right place to ask this question then. Putting questions on a site where they’re crawled and added to Google pollutes the usefulness of search engines. It also can create the impression that things don’t work in Fedora when, as you’ve seen, they work fine. Unfortunately, Fedora contributors can’t be everywhere at once! So if you see that the Fedora Forum doesn’t have an answer, try the fedora-list where there are many knowledgeable people to answer.
The solution to the mono problem is to run the utility “pavucontrol”. Then go to the “Configuration” section and change the Profile to “High Fidelity Playback”. I got this to work on one system of mine, but have been unable to on the either. Not sure the difference.
Also, I havent been able to figure out how to get Fedora 11 to recognize my set as a mic AS WELL AS an output source. playing music is nice, but so far I have to use an older headset in order to use Skype.
Scratch that. I just figured out what the deal was.
The A2DP protocol doesnt support mic, so if you switch to “High Fidelity” mode, you lose the mic. All you have to do to get the mic back is to switch back. So, Im happy. =D