Bluetooth not working out of the box

Software PureOS
22

Thanks.

For those who will join this thread in the future (and they will until BT is available out of the box):

In the end I went with adding

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye non-free

to the (PureOS byzantium and Debian bullseye-backports main) repo list, and using the Synaptic package manager to install just that single package from outside the Byzantium/Bullseye main structure. This has pulled in the most recent (stable) version from bullseye (20210315-3) as opposed the one mentioned way back at the start of this thread many years ago (stretch, now at 20190114-2).

( Else, if not using Synaptic, do:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install firmware-atheros

and reboot. )

It was up and working in minutes (i.e., after reboot).

The main view in Synaptic makes it much easier to keep track of all the packages installed, and to see which package lives where. With bullseye-backports also in the repo list, it’s also possible to see which newer post-stable versions (if any) are available and to selectively choose whether to go on to a later post-stable version or not (backports don’t replace anything existing unless you specifically install from there, and then update as usual).

Hopefully, this will help future visitors also looking to get BT going on their LibremX devices out of the box, until that point (eventually?) becomes moot :crossed_fingers:

Cheers!

6 Likes
23

Just got my L14 replacement and could not remember what I did to setup the bluetooth… Saved so much time!!

1 Like
24

Excellent! That was the idea :+1:

25

To be completely clear: You should be aware that this installs non-FOSS firmware.

26

That’s right.

You can double-check how much non-free software (from repos) is lurking on your computer by installing your very own Virtual Richard M. Stallman (vrms) and running it/him:

$ sudo apt-get install vrms
$ vrms
Non-free packages installed on [your computer]

firmware-atheros                    Binary firmware for Qualcomm Atheros wireless cards

  1 non-free packages, x.y% of nnnn installed packages.

This won’t show you non-free software installed from downloaded .deb files, though.