What's your experience with bluetooth audio?

Bluetooth audio is my least favorite part of using Linux and it seems like my coworkers agree. I hear a lot of praise for pipewire, but it doesn’t match what I experience. Does any system work well for anyone?

To clarify, it can work. But it’s a harsh experience compared to say Android. I’ve used Ubuntu, Fedora, and PopOS. I’ve tried a few different headphones, using Galaxy Buds 2 current. Pulseaudio tends to “do as it’s told” but doesn’t automatically switch to the right (confusingly named) profile. With Ubuntu 23.10, using pipewire, it does automatic switch profiles. Sometimes this works great. But very often, it gets stuck on on a profile or just stops working. I have to reconnect bluetooth to fix it.

Is there some magic combination of things that works or is this just how it is for everyone?

ProgrammingSocks, (edited )

No issues to report here. Audio sucked when I had an old shitty laptop with a BT4.0 chip but after I upgraded to a Thinkpad X280 Bluetooth just worked out of the box. Been using pipewire but before that I used pulseaudio with bluetooth audio extensions that you can find on the AUR. Pulseaudio was far less stable, pipewire just werks.

jlow,

Now that I know what to do (switch audio codecs on sound icon in menu bar depending on being in a call or listening to music) it works better for me on Linux Feroda than on Windoge.

mhz,

No problem here with Opensuse slowroll (Sway WM) and a Realtek bluetootth radio, I’m using blueman for managing enabling/managing bluetooth connections.

sic_semper_tyrannis,

Using the latest Mint I sometimes connect my Bluetooth ear buds (ISOTunes) and have had no issues.

LainOfTheWired,
@LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol avatar

For me on Arch and also, but a lot less frequent fedora I find that it works fine then every few months there’s an update that breaks it for a few days till it gets patched. But besides that it works fine for me. I use blueman in DWM BTW

hperrin,

I haven’t had any issue with Bluetooth audio on Fedora.

ScottE,
@ScottE@sh.itjust.works avatar

Gentoo and Pipewire kinda just works.

I expected a battle, like on my work Ubuntu laptop with pulse audio, but holy cow… Pipewire ftw.

9488fcea02a9,

Pipewire and debian stable here

BT audio works like 99% of the time. Then there’s that 1% it just stops working for no apparent reason and you spend an hour googling why without finding any answers. And in the end, unpairing, forgetting the device and the re-adding it fixes the problem in 2 mins

Overall very happy once i remember the quick fix

azvasKvklenko,

Vanilla Arch Linux, AirPods work better than on Android (which was super unreliable), but I also don’t care about automatic profile switching as I actually prefer to switch manually to whatever I need at the given moment.

comrade_pibb,
@comrade_pibb@hexbear.net avatar

Bluetooth kind of sucks ass

Pantherina, (edited )

Fedora Kinoite, working just as well as on Android (GrapheneOS)

Using Pipewire. The issue really is the shitty firmware of my headphones.

outbound,

Bluetooth works great. Debian w/ XFCE (pulseaudio). But, there is some config on a fresh install:


<span style="color:#323232;"># apt install blueman pulseaudio-module-bluetooth  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"># nano /etc/pulse/default.pa  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">add:  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">load-module module-switch-on-connect  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"># nano /etc/bluetooth/input.conf  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">change:  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">IdleTimeout=0  
</span>
jcarax,

I had a lot of problems back when I lived in civilization. But now that I live out of range of cell signals, and can’t even see neighbors’ wifi networks, it works a whole hell of a lot better. I still use a traditional DECT (Logitech H820e), and also a dongled 2.4ghz (Audeze Maxwell) headsets for work, but I also use the Maxwell with my phone over bluetooth without a problem. My Sennheiser Momentum 4 work fine with both my phone running Graphene, and my Thinkpad running Fedora.

I won’t even try with Windows. The bluetooth stack is such trash.

selokichtli,

For me, Bluetooth in general is a problematic technology that’s been trustworthy only when the device comes with a pre-paired Bluetooth emitter.

ExLisper,

It’s shit. Totally agree, the most irritating thing on Linux.

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