Hello. last week I have installed the latest version of KDE neon on my laptop and I absolutely love it. The only thing that bugs me is that the Bluetooth is not detected at all. I tried to search online to find a solution but I wasn't lucky.

Note :
1 - I can assure everyone that the laptop do come with a Bluetooth built in, I was using it when I was running windows.
2 - I wish that I can post some information about the Bluetooth but "dmesg | grep -i bluetooth" reports nothing.

Please advice me on what to do.

Thanks,

You can use directions for Ubuntu 20.04 for how tos related to bluetooth, but you will need to discover what specific adapter you have.

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dmesg | grep -i blue

This will; show messages related to bluetooth during bootup, and should give some sort of hardware info that can be researched for it, as well as errors related to it

Actually, if you have a wifi card, this probably includes bt, so you can see the hardware info for that from the lspci command:

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lspci | egrep -i --color 'network|ethernet|wireless|wi-fi'

The following code showed nothing.

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sudo dmesg | grep -i blue

And I got something with the following code.

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ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$ lspci | egrep -i --color 'network|ethernet|wireless|wi-fi'
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter


Please advise me and thank you.

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RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

So you have a Realtek RTL8821CE wifi card, which probably also provides bluetooth.
This card is common but has many variations, I believe. I have one of them, and Bt is working. That does not mean much, though, with Realtek
Is your WiFi working fine?

Let's get the device info, if available:

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$ lsusb

And find a line similar to this:

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Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0bda:b00a Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bluetooth Radio

and the full output of :

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$ rfkill list

Plus the output of:

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$ ubuntu-drivers devices

And to be safe, what kernel version are you running?



Are you sure you get zero output from

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dmesg | grep -i blue

at all?

You would at least see errors that the device was detected but could not be loaded, unless it there is no adapter at all (we know that there definitely is one) , or perhaps it is disabled in the bios?
What about any switches or keyboard function keys to disable/enable it?

Again, even if there was no driver or some firmware was missing, it still would be detected, and errors shown.

we can try this instead:

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$ dmesg | egrep 'Realtek|realtek|rtl'

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ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04f2:b62a Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd HP Webcam
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:c534 Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
       
ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$ ubuntu-drivers devices
WARNING:root:_pkg_get_support nvidia-driver-390: package has invalid Support Legacyheader, cannot determine support level
== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:01:00.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000010DEd0000174Esv0000103Csd000086B4bc03sc02i00
vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
model    : GM108M [GeForce MX110]
driver   : nvidia-driver-470 - distro non-free recommended
driver   : nvidia-driver-450-server - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-470-server - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-460-server - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-460 - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-418-server - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-390 - distro non-free
driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin

== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/0000:03:00.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000010ECd0000C821sv0000103Csd0000831Abc02sc80i00
vendor   : Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
model    : RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
driver   : rtl8821ce-dkms - distro free

ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$ dmesg | grep -i blue
ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$

ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$ dmesg | egrep 'Realtek|realtek|rtl'
[   10.254703] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for ALC236: line_outs=1 (0x14/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker
[   10.254710] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[   10.254714] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    hp_outs=1 (0x21/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[   10.254717] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[   10.254719] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    inputs:
[   10.254721] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Mic=0x19
[   10.254723] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Internal Mic=0x12
[   12.409214] Generic FE-GE Realtek PHY r8169-0-200:00: attached PHY driver (mii_bus:phy_addr=r8169-0-200:00, irq=MAC)


I dunno. It looks as if there isn't a bt adapter at all, which we Know is not the case.
Either it has been physically turned off, or maybe it simply is not supported/detected by the kernel. Which is also odd.
But then again, this specific chip has multiple variants and seems to have inconsistent Linux support in recent years.

You have the correct wifi driver for the card, for sure, which iirc should also provide the bluetooth driver.

I have the same model card, and I have an entry in lsusb for the Bluetooth part of the card, as I showed above,. you don't have an entry.
Even when this card wasn't supported without building/installing the driver manually on Ubuntu/Kde Neon in 18.04, mine showed the device info in lsusb. This is why I am asking if there is a switch or keyboard Fn key combo, or bios setting to check, anything that might be physically turning off Bt.

Heck, my memory is kicking in. if you have secure boot enabled in the Bios, try disabling this. This was a requirement when I had to build the rtl8821ce-dkms driver for Neon when it was based on 18.04.

You might try booting to Windows after doing this, then rebooting to Neon (if you dual boot). Not sure if that is relevant, but I vaguely think i may have had to do that. It has been a few years now, so I may be wrong, but it does not hurt.

After that, I am afraid I am out of ideas. You might seek further assistance in places with more Ubuntu 20.04 specific knowledge.


Unhelpful bug links
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1853665

I purchased a Bluetooth USB dongle from ugreen https://www.amazon.ae/UGREEN-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Wireless-compatible/dp/B08FX7Y1N5

I was looking forward for it to work but it didn't. But I noticed that KDE shows a notification when plug in "built-in audio analog stereo" and when removing "action audio analog stereo" my assumption is that the KDE neon is detecting the Bluetooth as audio devices. I rerun the commands previously and I got this.

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ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04f2:b62a Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd HP Webcam
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:c534 Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 001 Device 009: ID 10d6:dd00 Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd Action audio
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub


This was added

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Bus 001 Device 009: ID 10d6:dd00 Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd Action audio

And

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ahmed@ahmed-hplaptop15da2xxx:~$ dmesg | egrep 'Realtek|realtek|rtl'
[   10.184460] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for ALC236: line_outs=1 (0x14/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker
[   10.184471] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[   10.184477] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    hp_outs=1 (0x21/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[   10.184482] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[   10.184486] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    inputs:
[   10.184489] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Mic=0x19
[   10.184493] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Internal Mic=0x12
[   12.032628] Generic FE-GE Realtek PHY r8169-0-200:00: attached PHY driver (mii_bus:phy_addr=r8169-0-200:00, irq=MAC)


This was added

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[   10.184460] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for ALC236: line_outs=1 (0x14/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker


I think KDE neon needs to understand that the device plug-in is a Bluetooth not a speaker.

Please advice me and thank you.

Unfortunately this device may well be an audio device.

UGREEN Bluetooth transmitter audio adapter only supports connecting the Bluetooth-enabled speaker or headphone to a non-Bluetooth audio device such as PS5, PS4, switches and laptops with a USB A port. Note: It doesn't support mic.

It only transmits, so it is not 2-way. Not a true Bt dongle
it has quite a lot of poor reviews
It seems primarily to add Bt headphones to game consoles.

This mone seems to work with the kernel version in Neon/Ubuntu 20.04. It is also in a similar-ish price range

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/ ... ngle_best/
Among other reviews.

One trick for finding Linux compatible devices like these are to read the user reviews, and to NOT trust the sellers' description. For Bluetooth and wifi dongles, supporting a Raspberry PI is also a sign it works in Linux, so you can search reviews for both linux and Rpi users.

Here is another one that seems to work well on Linux

I got the Bluetooth device that you recommended and it is detected in KDE .

I tried to use my Huawei freebuds 3 but it is not connecting in KDE .

Any ideas?

A quick thing to check is to make sure your phone is not trying to connect to the buds. I sometimes have to momentarily turn Bluetooth off when I try to connect my Earfun Free buds to either my laptop or PC.


There may be some useful info/links here