In general I recommend to just get a bluetooth audio adapter. They typically just work with linux and you don't have to deal with the bluetooth part. They will simply show up as audio device and that's it. They are also fairly cheap (between €10 and €30).
So it's like a dongle plugged in via USB?
You could say so. Or you could consider it a "soundcard" plugged in via USB (that conveniently connects to your bluetooth headset).
IMHO this is more a hack than a solution. I love it when things just work out the way they should on Linux as well as on any other OS. Having to use half-baked solutions like this might really turn away potential Linux users.
Then again, I never had major software-related Bluetooth audio issues on Linux, apart from general lag / audio-video offset. But this is an even bigger issue on Windows afaik...
It's not half-baked. Dedicated bluetooth chips can also achieve far better performance. Some of these devices pack qualcom chips that can do lowlatency audio out of the box. And you can use them on basically any device (PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, etc.; everything that allows usb audio devices). I also use it on Windows and it saves me a lot of trouble there; even though Windows does have bluetooth drivers as well.
I've read this can depend a lot on the bluetooth card. Personally after replacing my cheapo dongle from like 2012 that probably just didn't do a recent enough BT version I didn't have any issues connecting to them.
What card do you have? Might be useful for anyone else who has the same issue.
I’m running Manjaro, and after installing blue man, and pairing I’ve not had any issues. Thankfully!
I do need to manually switch between a2dp and headset modes when I do video conference calls. I’m just used to doing it now. Heh made an easy keybind for my profiles so it’s not bad.
I’ve tried these on multiple Manjaro builds and have always worked. Maybe I was just lucky with Arch and Manjaro supporting this. Phew!
Other than the problem, how are you finding them? I’ve found them the best earphone investment I’ve ever made. They are awesome and so portable. Used them on the plane a bunch and they are great :)
Both AirPods 1st gen and AirPods Max worked for me perfectly fine without any tweaks. Maybe it's an issue with your Bluetooth adapter?
Got no issues with AirPods Pro and arch. Installed blueman and it’s dependencies and it connected just fine. Managed to configure pipewire to automatically switch between a2dp sink and hsp depending on the current usage.
I haven’t had any problem on Garuda with my AirPods. I saw another guy say he had no problems with manjaro and arch. I didn’t know people were having problems on other distros or setups.
Man, I guess I’m lucky mine connected without any issues right after installing F38.
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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