USB-bluetooth drivers for Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I need to add bluetooth to my desktop Ubuntu machine, running 16.04. Do I need to buy a specific USB-adapter for driver-support, or can I go pickup basically anything, and it should have support and work?

Solution 1

A well-trod path for this is already on the Ubuntu wiki:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsBluetoothUsbAdapters

The page is maintained by the community - if you discover updated or new information, please share.

Solution 2

I've had a problem with getting Bluetooth audio (well any bluetooth connection) to work with Ubuntu 16:04 on my HP Envy 17 which runs a Broadcom Limited BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:43b1] (rev 03).

After a lot of searching over the last two years, I had a clue in that there was a missing firmware driver error:

$ dmesg grep bluetooth

bluetooth hci0: Direct firmware load for brcm/BCM20702A1-0a5c-21fb.hcd failed with error -2

so it was just a matter of tracking down the missing piece of firmware and copying into /lib/firmware/brcm/ which I found at github:

https://github.com/winterheart/broadcom-bt-firmware

and now it works fine!

Comments

[TrailRider]

to add to this, if you shop on amazon.com or newegg.com many of the product descriptions will say if they support linux. Both of those websites have very good policies for returns so if it turns out not to work they will allow you to return it as defective if it will not work in linux if the description says it will. I have purchased multiple things for my linux box at both sites and have never had an issue getting it to work if it says it's Linux compatible.

[darksmurf]

This fixed my issues with ASUS USB-BT400 on Ubuntu 16.04.

[pt12lol]

@user535733: I have another device working with Ubuntu 18.04, but not listed on this listing. Where can I notify the community to add such device to this list?

[user535733]

@pt12lol - YOU are a member of the community, too. Make an account, edit the page. While there, update a couple more pages also.

[Roel Van de Paar]

Just be careful and try to ensure any 3rd party driver does not have viruses/malware in it.