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1 Kubuntu and Bluetooth Audio
2 ===========================
3 :author: Aaron Ball
4 :email: nullspoon@iohq.net
5
6
7 == {doctitle}
8
9 I just recently made a switch to http://www.kubuntu.org/[Kubuntu] to test out
10 their integration of KDE4.4. I must admit that I like this version. It's very
11 visually appealing and generally works very well. Post-installation, I
12 realized however that I had a very serious problem: my bluetooth headphones
13 wouldn't pair with it.
14
15 Now for those of you who don't know me, I'm a web developer and a systems admin
16 for my company (and my house). If you know much about digital technology you
17 also understand that tunes are an essential piece to forward motion on any
18 project.
19
20 All this being said, I scowered the interwebz for a solution to my problem.
21 Thanks to a few arbitrary links, I discovered that the bluetooth manger in
22 KDE4.4,*, will not pair with audio devices (and a few other types, but those
23 aren't important for the sake of this post), this includes bluetooth headsets
24 to be used with software such as Skype.
25
26 Sadly, with all of that searching I discovered that there seems to be only one
27 way to fix this: install the gnome bluetooth manager.
28
29 With that, let's get started!
30
31 Crack open a terminal and type in:
32
33 ----
34 sudo apt-get install gnome-bluetooth pulseaudio pavucontrol
35 ----
36
37 Here's that those packages do.
38
39 * **gnome-bluetooth**: If it isn't already obvious, this is the gnome
40 bluetooth manager.
41 * '''pulseaudio ''': This line is in case you don't use pulseaudio for
42 your KDE instance. Typically I believe KDE does not use pulseaudio. This is
43 required because guess what! the KDE audio drivers don't support changing the
44 output device from stereo to a bluetooth device.
45 * **pavucontrol**: This is short for **P**ulse **A**udio **V**olume
46 **Control**.
47
48 From here, put your bluetooth device in discoverable mode, open up
49 gnome-bluetooth (should be a rather misfit icon in the taskbar), and connect to
50 your device.
51
52 The second step in the process of connecting is telling your audio system to
53 output to the headphones instead of the stereo. To do that, find the Pulse
54 Audio Volume Control in your Kickoff menu and change your output to your
55 bluetooth headset.
56
57 The final step in this is to enjoy some high quality (hopefully) wireless music
58 with a 33 foot tether. Enjoy!
59
60 Category:Kubuntu
61 Category:Ubuntu
62 Category:Linux
63
64
65 // vim: set syntax=asciidoc:
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