bluez package out of date, 5.23 is available in debian sid/jessie

[Chris Morgan]

Looks like there have been a lot of improvements to bluez since the 4.x series. Would be nice to get the latest release pulled in.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

BlueZ 5 series change a lot of things in how bluez works, and impact a few other packages that also need to be changed, but I agree we'll need to update to the latest bluez soon.

"Scheduling" this for after Raring is released; it's too late to be doing this in Raring, but we'll definitely need to start looking into upgrading bluez soon. Marking as Triaged/Wishlist.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Milestone to Ubuntu later; it's not yet clear what actual milestone we should be targetting after Raring for this; but it's definitely something to discuss at UDS, or at least to prioritize then.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

There was some discussion about bluez 5 at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2013-June/msg00036.html

The developers of GNOME 3.10 are in the progress of adding bluez 5 support (and dropping bluez 4 support) but PulseAudio isn't ready yet.

[Talle (talle)]

We're now 5 months further and Bluez 5.12 just landed.

The current version in Ubuntu (4.101) is now 18(!) months old and a lot of important changes and new features have been committed (see: http://git.kernel.org/cgit/bluetooth/bluez.git/log/ ) since then.

Is there any new information when this package will be updated?

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

This blocks update of gnome-user-share (bug 1210125)

[Rohan Garg (rohangarg)]

This also blocks a imminent release of powerdevil on the KDE side. The current Powerdevil 1.x series will be EOL'd causing Trusty to ship a package that is not supported by upstream. Since we're in the middle of the trusty cycle, can we evaluate moving to bluez5 or maybe even a separate bluez5 which doesn't meddle with the current bluez package?

[jhoechtl (johann-hoechtl)]

upgrading bluez to bluez5 will be the end for bluetooth hands free support HFP. Many people use that, Skype with bluetooth device anybody? Please don't upgrade unless HFP support is restored.

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73325#c7

[Andy Meier (andy-meier)]

According to https://github.com/chrippa/ds4drv bluez 5.14 fixes the pairing bug with Sony DS4 controllors.

[Sandra Karuving (lumks)]

↑ And the WiiU Pro Controller

i hope we will see it in 14.10

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

Blocks gnome-bluetooth update (bug 1345884)

[Quinn Strahl (qstrahl)]

Current version in 14.04 (4.101) is now 26 months old... really feeling the hurt from missing features.

[Danny (hexxah24)]

they better update it. now.

[Gregory Langlais (gregl83)]

Common bluetooth devices do not work properly with the current version of bluez. I'd think this would be more important than a wishlist item at this point...

[kevinf (kevinf)]

Trying to make a Bluetooth CarPuter instead of using my phone... Windows failed to pair... and Ubuntu is no better... Can't do it the old Alsa way... Need to use pulseaudio, yet Bluez is broken and old.. COMMON! Maybe ill install Lucid.

[Sergio Benjamim (sergio-br2)]

bluez in debian testing is already version 5.23, why in utopic it's 4 yet?

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

Sergio: Ubuntu Utopic has version 4.101-0ubuntu19, where the latter part of the version number ("ubuntu19") means there's some Ubuntu-specific patches in this package. Normally a package from Debian will be synced to Ubuntu when a new version appears. However, in this case when there are some changes in Ubuntu, so someone needs to look at those changes to see which of them have been applied upstream and which need updating/reworking. This is called merging, because it merges the changes from Ubuntu with the latest package from Debian. (See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/Merging for more details on merging)

So basically, someone needs to take 5.23 from Debian, and then merge it with the patches we have in Ubuntu today.

Judging from comment #3 it sounds like support for bluez 5 in PulseAudio was a blocker at some point. What is the current state of this?

[aljosa (aljosa)]

how is this tagged with "Wishlist" importance?

while i was reporting my issue w/ wireless keyboard i've noticed a few other issues which seem to be resolved in newer bluez releases (5.25 this month).
there is a bunch of people affected w/ various mouse/keyboard/headphones not working which can be resolved w/ bluez update.

[MyXelf (jasmyxelf)]

After installing Utopic Unicorn, and having several unknown disconnection issues with both a Logiteck K810 and a Logitech T630, i retried the migration to Bluez 5. There are some PPAs out there almost ready for this version of Ubuntu, but more important IMHO is that there are packages already present upstream (Debian Jessie - 5.23-1). And those installed without trouble in the Utopic flavour.

After that, I'm experiencing a much better handling of the devices, not perfect, but trully improved. From upstream I also installed the 'bluedevil' packages which integrates pretty well into the current desktop. The troubleshooting and interacting experience will be much better thanks to the 'btmon' and the 'bluetoothctl' utilities. IDK why hcidump was deleted from the repositories.

AFAICT, there is no ALSA supported versions yet, but this could be an starting point to the 'most-wanted' and really needed migration process.

PS: Also I strongly disagree with the Wishlist categorization of this issue...

[Unixuser (unixuser)]

++++ very old packet- works bad very often

[Sandra Karuving (lumks)]

BT hands free works again with bluez5 + pulseaudio 6 now

[elhoir (jfarroyo82)]

pulseaudio depends on bluez, in the sense that pulseaudio <=4.0wworks with bluez 4 , and pulseaudio 5 works with bluez 5.
o, maybe after upgradingto bluez 5, you (whoever is related) can uprade pulseaudio too...

just my thoughts......

[Benjamin Xiao (ben-r-xiao)]

Pulseaudio just got upgraded to version 6 today for Vivid. Does this mean we'll see Bluez 5 soon now that HSP support has been fixed?

[Sandra Karuving (lumks)]

i hope so...

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-v-bluez5

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Yes, the BlueZ 5 migration is still being "worked on", and targetted for Vivid. PulseAudio 6 was part of the issue, but wasn't the only thing blocking the migration. There are many pieces that need to be updated or confirmed to work (blueman, indicator-blueooth, gnome-bluetooth, to name a few). The blueprint linked above will get updated as work gets done. There is also coordination that needs to happen with the Ubuntu Touch teams to not interfere with their releases.

Unassigning myself, given that I'm not the only person working on this.

[Sb (sb56637)]

Is this still targeted for Vivid?

[GizmoChicken (gizmochicken)]

Is this targeted for Wily?

[José Tomás Atria (jtatria)]

Hello all, I've just started following this issue after updating to vivid. First, would it be possible to get some sort of notion of how this is coming along? Is it going to show up in vivid-backports, or is it targeted for wily?

Also, is it possible to install the bluez version that packagers are working with and possibly help test it?

Thanks

[Saikrishna Arcot (saiarcot895)]

This likely won't be in vivid-backports, since there are many components that depends on bluez and only work with bluez 4. (See also https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-v-bluez5)

[Amr Ibrahim (amribrahim1987)]

Any news for packaging this for wily? I think bluez 5 needs broad testing in 15.10 before 16.04 LTS.

[Nicholas Christian Langkjær Ipsen (ncli)]

This is really becoming a problem. The latest logitech bluetooth devices simply do not work with the version of bluez used in Ubuntu! Every supported release needs to be upgraded to the latest version in order to ensure a satisfactory end-user experience.

[Simon Fels (morphis)]

We're actively working on getting this done and BlueZ 5.23 is being prepared and should soon appear in wily. There is a ppa already which has all necessary packages for vivid and wily (see https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-desktop/+archive/ubuntu/transitions). If you want to help us testing those feel free to do so and report any problems.

The Touch side of Ubuntu will be updated later too.

[GizmoChicken (gizmochicken)]

Looks like BlueZ 5.33 is now in Wiley. Great! Thanks much!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/5.33-0ubuntu3