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# Blueman

From ArchWiki

Blueman is a full featured Bluetooth manager written in GTK+ and, as such, is recommended for GNOME, Xfce, or LXDE.

## Installation

Install blueman from the official repositories.

Be sure to enable the Bluetooth daemon and start Blueman with `blueman-applet`.

## Usage

Be sure the local Bluetooth device is availabe by running `hcitool dev`. If only `Devices:` is dumped, the local Bluetooth device is unavailable. You may restart the bluetooth service or toggle the WiFi/Bluetooth switch of your laptop, for example `Fn+F3` in Acer Aspire or reboot to activate the local Bluetooth device. If you run `blueman-applet` without available local Bluetooth device, the Blueman tray icon will not appear.

Then execute `blueman-applet`, and the Blueman tray icon will show up. `/etc/xdg/autostart/blueman.desktop` may have been created to autostart Blueman when loggin into X in a system-wide manner. If not, to make the applet run after login into a graphical environment automatically, add `blueman-applet` either under System > Preferences > Startup Applications (GNOME) or Xfce Menu > Settings > Session and Startup (Xfce). Various ways to autostart a program are listed in Autostarting.

In order for a user to add and manage Bluetooth devices using Blueman, the user must be added to the `lp` group. See `/etc/dbus-1/system.d/bluetooth.conf` for the section that enables users of the `lp` group to communicate with the Bluetooth daemon.

To receive files remember to right click on the Blueman tray icon > Local Services > Transfer > File Receiving" and tick the square box next to "Enabled".

Note: If you are running Blueman outside GNOME/GDM (e.g., in Xfce using the `startx` command) you should add `source /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/*` on top of your `~/.xinitrc` to make Nautilus capable to browse your devices.

#### Generic file manager script

If you are not using Nautilus (for example Thunar) you may find the following script useful:

    obex_thunar.sh

    #!/bin/bash
    fusermount -u ~/bluetooth
    obexfs -b $1 ~/bluetooth
    thunar ~/bluetooth

Now you will need to move the script to an appropriate location (e.g., `/usr/local/bin`). After that, mark it as executable:

    # chmod +x /usr/local/bin/obex_thunar.sh

The last step is to change the line in Blueman tray icon > Local Services > Transfer > Advanced to `obex_thunar.sh %d`.

## Blueman and PulseAudio

Users who want to use PulseAudio with a Bluetooth headset may want to activate the PulseAudio plugin of Blueman. This automatically loads PulseAudio Bluetooth module after audio device is connected and plays all audio through the Bluetooth headset.

## Troubleshooting

### Blueman and Thunar

As long as you have gvfs-obexftp installed, you can use Thunar from Blueman to browse files remotely. Open up the Blueman services configuration window and replace:

    nautilus --browse obex://

with:

    thunar obex://

### Workaround for a Bug with obex and gvfs

Note: This bug only afflict older versions of Blueman.

To browse mobile phone via nautilus with Blueman you need a patched gvfs. Install gvfs-rar from AUR. obex-data-server package is broken for now and needs to rebuild with:

    $ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc

Just grab it from ABS and rebuild.

>>For me now with actual obex-data-server and standard gvfs all is working fine (Yes obex-browsing too) the only thing is delete files on remote storage do not work.

### Workaround a bug with network manager in Bluetooth networking

Some distributions show all Bluetooth interfaces as net.80203, which can cause strange behaviour in network manager, for example NM trying to get dhcp address for an incoming connection.

Note: This bug only afflicts versions below 1.02.

Put this in `/etc/hal/fdi/information/bnep.fdi`:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

    <deviceinfo version="0.2">
     <device>
       <match key="info.category" string="net.80203">
         <match key="net.interface" contains="bnep">
             <merge key="info.category" type="string">net.bluetooth</merge>
             <merge key="info.product" type="string">Bluetooth Interface</merge>
             <merge key="info.capabilities" type="strlist">net, net.bluetooth</merge>
             <merge key="net.bluetooth.mac_address" type="copy_property">net.80203.mac_address</merge>
             <remove key="net.80203.mac_address"/>
         </match>
       </match>
     </device>
    </deviceinfo>

### Cannot receive files

You have to edit `/etc/conf.d/bluetooth` file and uncomment this line:

    #SDPD_ENABLE="true"

### Blueman applet does not start

If blueman-applet fails to start, try removing the entire `/var/lib/bluetooth` directory and restarting the machine (or just the dbus and bluetooth services).

    # rm -rf /var/lib/bluetooth
    # reboot

If you see a notification saying `Incoming file over Bluetooth` then this means that the device isn't marked as trusted. Mark it as trusted and try again (looking at the code, it looks like some buttons should be displayed in the notification, but I don't see them).

## See also

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=65889 - Discussion threads on problems

Retrieved from "https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Blueman&oldid=275416"
Category:

- Bluetooth

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