How to activate bluetooth device for RTL8723DE?

Question

The wireless drivers for the RTL8723DE appeared for downloading and the module is now usable for Wi-Fi.

See Realtek Semiconductor RTL8723DE Device d723 issue

But the bluetooth part of it is yet not supported on Ubuntu. How this can be fixed?

lsusb shows

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:b009 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. 

And usb-devices | awk '/0bda/' RS=

T:  Bus=01 Lev=02 Prnt=02 Port=03 Cnt=01 Dev#=  3 Spd=12  MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=e0(wlcon) Sub=01 Prot=01 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=0bda ProdID=b009 Rev=02.00
S:  Manufacturer=Realtek
S:  Product=802.11n WLAN Adapter
S:  SerialNumber=00e04c000001
C:  #Ifs= 2 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=500mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 3 Cls=e0(wlcon) Sub=01 Prot=01 Driver=btusb
I:  If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=e0(wlcon) Sub=01 Prot=01 Driver=btusb

Solution

Support for this bluetooth device had been just added to the 4.17rc kernel.

The code can be easily backported to kernels 4.4 - 4.15. I made a PPA with DKMS packages for bionic and xenial with the updated btrtl module.

It can be installed by

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hanipouspilot/bluetooth
sudo apt update
sudo apt install btrtl-rtl8723de-dkms

You may also need firmware for this device if it is not there. Look into your /lib/firmware/rtl_bt directory. If there are no rtl8723d_config.bin and rtl8723d_fw.bin files, clone the latest linux-firmware by

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

and get the files from there. It is not that hard. Sorry that I forgot to add the firmware to the package.

The DKMS should survive kernel upgrades.

Important!: Ubuntu 18.04 has the 5.3 HWE kernel now. REMOVE this package if you are on 5.3+ kernels. Otherwise BT won't work.

Comments

[Ilya]

I still have this issue with kernel 5.4 (firmware installed). Has the support been removed since?

[Pilot6]

Kernel 5.4 has the in-tree support.

[Javier]

How many files should I have in /lib/firmware/rtl_bt/?

[Pilot6]

I didn't count them. You need two files for this device.

[greengold]

this bluetooth module on lenovo l14 seems to be loaded and working as per systemctl status ... but can't find any devices. anyone?