mactel-support team mailing list archive

[Ricky Campbell <cyberdork33@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have one of the white keyboards that predates the aluminum ones. I had
it working fine using hidd and the hci reset method described in the
blog post I mentioned in the bug description.

I have had trouble with this keyboard ever since the bluetooth stack was overhauled for Hardy. I used the actual terminal commands to inferface with bluetooth through dbus, and it works everytime. That, however, does not prompt for a pairing key or anything. I described this method here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4486290

I have also tried numerous other tweaks such as altering the bluetooth
device name to include only a very simple string of letters. Putting the
keyboard in discovery mode, and scanning finds the device, but when you
attempt to connect it just gives an error. That is all. If there is any
more tecnical output I can give you please let me know and I will be
glad to get it for you.

-- 
[Intrepid] New Bluetooth Wizard fails to pair with Apple Keyboard...
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/281580
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Mactel
Support, which is the registrant for Mactel Support.

Status in Mactel Support: New
Status in “bluez” source package in Ubuntu: New

Bug description:
Binary package hint: bluez

With the latest updates to Intrepid testing, the new bluetooth device setup wizard (which is an excellent improvement over the previous setup methods) fails to pair with my Apple Keyboard (pre-aluminum, broadcom based). No debug information or error messages are given other than "failed to pair".

Further making this an issue is the fact that the recent bluetooth updates also removed the hidd binary from Ubuntu (again).

This method seems to be the only thing that works for Apple Bluetooth Keyboards recently:
http://idebian.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/manage-hid-bluetooth-devices-in-linux/

Notice that it requires hci to be reset, but cannot use hid2hci to do this. The keyboard was working fine previous to the update using the method in the above link.

Removing reliable and useful software from the repos that can be useful for workarounds when new software is introduced is not a good idea. The hidd binary has been removed several times from Ubuntu and each time it has been requested that it is put back. Please make this binary available in the repos via other means so that it can be used as a fallback in the future.