On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Keith Lofstrom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am experimenting with bluetooth with SL5.4 (yes, I know it is
> not the latest) and having trouble locating relevant tutorials,
> documentation, etc. on the web.  Most linux bluetooth info is
> missing, out of date, KDE/debian/ubuntu centric, etc.

Well, yes, especially on 5.4. If you can free up a separate box to
test on and install 6.1, do so. There doesn't seem to be a change in
the base "bluez" components between SL 5.4 and 5.7:  There's a big
jump between bluez-3.7 for SL 5.x, and bluez-4.66 for SL 6.1.

You might try backporting the SRPM manually. But a fast test shows
that it has some modified package requirements from SL 5, and the
source autoconf says that it requires glib-2.14, which is not built
into SL 5. This sort of ongoing update requirement is *inevitable*
with heavily feature and hardware changing software like Bluetooth:
it's one of the reasons Bluetooth is not an ideal requirement for a
"server" class OS, such as SL or the upstream vendor's "enterprise"
products, especially when you're unalbe to use the current release.

SL 6.0 has been out for over six months, and the upsream vendor's 6.0
has been out for over 10 months. It's time to consider updating if you
want tools like bluetooth to work with the latest hardware.

> Bluetooth may "just work" if the hardware is right.  But a list
> of currently available and linux compatable USB bluetooth dongles
> is also missing.  For example, the iogear GBU421 I just bought
> has a different USB ID than that claimed to work on one of the
> linux USB device lists.
>
> Any suggestions for RHEL/SL/CentOS 5 linux bluetooth docs,
> tutorials, interpretation of error messages, etc?  When I've
> read the relevant information, I can start asking proper questions.

See above.

>
> Keith
>
> PS: And no, I'm not going to upgrade SL until I have a month
> to do so.  I use too many fragile apps that are broken by
> upgrades and dependency conflicts, and fixing them takes time.
> If I wanted to spend my life upgrading distros instead of
> doing something productive, I would run Fedora.

Ouch.. The update to 5.6 is pretty painless and brought a *lot* of
fixes, with our favorite upstream vendor's releases, If you really
can't do even that, consider updating the "bluez-*" components from
the ""5x" or "5rolling" repositories.

What are your worst upgrade fears? Maybe we can help!