Home > KDE, Software Libre > BlueDevil, the new KDE bluetooth stack is here

BlueDevil, the new KDE bluetooth stack is here

We’re proud to announce the first release of BlueDevil, the new bluetooth stack for KDE SC.

Description:

BlueDevil is a set of components, which integrates bluetooth within the KDE SC, for example adding a system preference module (KCM), or allowing to browse the files in a cell phone from you favorite file browser.

The list of already implemented components is:

  • System preference module (KCM) to configure all the options regarding Bluetooth (also fully activate/deactivate it)
  • Integration with the KDE input/output system (KIO), which allows to discover and explore all bluetooth devices around from your favorite file browser
  • A wizard to pair your devices, and connect directly to the compatible services, such input (mouse, keybaord, Wiimote) and audio (headsets, phones)
  • Systray application integrated with the last KDE SC 4.5, from where all BlueDevil actions can be done (disconnect devices, send files, configure…)
  • Daemon to listen incoming petitions, for example to receive files, or to introduce a requested PIN.

Dependencies:

  • bluez (to get it working)
  • obex-data-server (for receiving files, and KIO’s)
  • obexd-client (for sending files)
  • KDE SC 4.4 or greater
  • PulseAudio, or a proper configured Alsa (with the bluetooth hook)

Errata:

  • When using kio_obexftp in dolphin on a KDE SC 4.4, some times it won’t load the content because more than one kio is launched at the same time and it is not supported by the backend (Tip: Disable the previews or use konqueror)
  • In KDE 4.5 SC, some times when a device is removed, the systray is not correctly updated (Seems to be a bug in QDBusMenu)
  • When trying to open a file from a bluetooth device, the progress gets stucked at 99%

Target Audience:

This release should be stable enough to be used by everybody, but we’re looking specially for advanced users with “compiling skills” so we can get quick feedback and fix as many bugs as possible. if you are Interested send an email to alex (at) ufocoders dot com.

Internationalization:

Currently BlueDevil is not ready to be translated (the strings are not final), and we’re looking for native English speakers who can help us with the strings, interested people send an email to alex {at) ufocoders.com

Special thanks to (in no particular order):

  • BlueZ developers and community for their help during the development (and patience)
  • David Faure for his help during the development and infinite patience talking about KIO’s
  • To ufocoders for sponsor half of the development

Obtaining the code:

To get the tag:

git clone git://gitorious.org/bluedevil/bluedevil.git; git checkout v1.0-rc1

In the next release we’ll provide the proper tarball.

Categories: KDE, Software Libre Tags:
  1. TheBlackCat
    July 28th, 2010 at 05:14 | #1

    Great! This is really, really good news! Thank you very much. This is very much needed.

  2. zayed
    July 28th, 2010 at 08:07 | #2

    Excellent !! I love KIO. It make my life easy. Thanks.

  3. Znurre
    July 28th, 2010 at 08:12 | #3

    Seems to be a more than worthy successor to KBluetooth, nice job.

  4. binarylooks
    July 28th, 2010 at 08:18 | #4

    At last. Thanks a lot for the effort on this. Bluetooth is a mess in KDE no more :-)

    BTW, what about PAN = Internet tethering with bluetooth phones?

  5. Xeno
    July 28th, 2010 at 09:52 | #5

    Hello,
    Great news, btw any plans for modem connections via cell-phones over bluetooth?
    NetworkManager got this capablity with one of the latest releases, but even being able to use it with KPPP would make world of difference

  6. Stefan
    July 28th, 2010 at 09:57 | #6

    Yay, one less GNOME component I have to use in KDE! Thank you!

  7. July 28th, 2010 at 10:26 | #7

    Brilliant! I have been looking forward to a better bluetooth experience in kde for a long time. Please could somebody package this on obs asap!

  8. non7top
    July 28th, 2010 at 10:27 | #8

    It won’t compile for me asking for some libbluedevil

    – Looking for LibBlueDevil
    CMake Error at cmake/modules/FindLibBlueDevil.cmake:36 (MESSAGE):
    Could not find LibBlueDevil
    Call Stack (most recent call first):
    CMakeLists.txt:7 (find_package)

  9. Kishore
    July 28th, 2010 at 11:16 | #9

    I tried building but it seems that there is a dependency on libbluedevil. I get an error from FindLibBlueDevil.cmake that says “Could not find LibBlueDevil”. Where can i find it?

  10. Fidalgo
    July 28th, 2010 at 11:17 | #10

    Thanks a lot for your work. Bluetooth support is one area KDE needs more love…

  11. Antonio
    July 28th, 2010 at 12:36 | #11

    Thank you so much for your work!

    I literally couldn’t wait for proper KDE Bluetooth support, as I’d been forced to use GNOME’s bluetooth-applet to get my bluetooth headset to work automagically so far :(

    Cheers,
    Antonio

  12. david
    July 28th, 2010 at 12:42 | #12

    Hi
    Thanks, I’m going to test it. But maybe it makes sense to add libbluedevil to the dependencies.

  13. Framp
    July 28th, 2010 at 13:25 | #13

    YOU ARE THE MAN :D

    Thank you!

  14. pvdp
    July 28th, 2010 at 14:08 | #14

    Superb, one of the last annoyances in my KDE desktop experience is about to get fixed. Thank you! Every couple of months my wishlist gets shorter :-)

  15. Sebastian
    July 28th, 2010 at 14:13 | #15

    That are damn good news. Fantastic work!

  16. Taurnil
    July 28th, 2010 at 14:28 | #16

    This is great news. I have been using blueman + pulseaudio + phonon-backend-vlc (it was phonon-vlc) with great success and the setup works fine listening to flash stuff via firefox. While blueman is a great tool and kbluetooth just wasn’t up to the task, I really longed for a real kde bluetooth app. Going to grab the git and give it a whirl.

  17. July 28th, 2010 at 15:01 | #17

    That’s true, I’ll add it for the next RC

  18. Taurnil
    July 28th, 2010 at 15:03 | #18

    – Found KDE 4.5 include dir: /usr/include
    – Found KDE 4.5 library dir: /usr/lib
    – Found the KDE4 kconfig_compiler preprocessor: /usr/bin/kconfig_compiler
    – Found automoc4: /usr/bin/automoc4
    – Found KDE4Workspace: /usr/lib64/cmake/KDE4Workspace-4.4.95/KDE4WorkspaceConfig.cmake
    – Looking for LibBlueDevil
    CMake Error at cmake/modules/FindLibBlueDevil.cmake:36 (MESSAGE):
    Could not find LibBlueDevil
    Call Stack (most recent call first):
    CMakeLists.txt:7 (find_package)

    – Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
    dveatch@sidney:~/bluedevil/build (detached)$

  19. July 28th, 2010 at 15:03 | #19
  20. July 28th, 2010 at 15:04 | #20

    I’m starting to be involved in the NetworkManager team, so yes, you can be sure that we’ll have support.

  21. July 28th, 2010 at 15:04 | #21

    Next release hopefully (1.1)

  22. July 28th, 2010 at 15:05 | #22

    You clearly ROCK!!! All of you!

  23. July 28th, 2010 at 17:08 | #23

    We’ve packaged libbluedevil and bluedevil for openSUSE in the Build Service project KDE:Unstable:Playground.

  24. July 28th, 2010 at 17:12 | #24

    if Playground means KDE Playground, then BlueDevil is in extragear :p

    Thanks for packaging it!

  25. July 29th, 2010 at 01:26 | #25

    Thanks for this great work. Are there any plans for synchronisation with phones?

  26. July 29th, 2010 at 04:58 | #26
  27. July 29th, 2010 at 08:52 | #27

    There is people working on that, we only provide the “bluetooth” support, not the syncml, for example.

  28. TheBlackCat
    July 29th, 2010 at 16:22 | #28

    I am having some trouble with two of my devices with bluedevil. First, my HP Bluetooth PC Card Mouse connects fine, although it does show the “input this code 0000″ window for a little while. However, My interlink VP6600 expresscard remote never gets past that page, even though it doesn’t need a code, either. If I force it to pair by clicking the “Trust” button and then cancelling the setup wizard, it disappears.

    My LG Env Touch is the same, it shows the 0000 code, which doesn’t match the code the phone shows. Also, if I manually enter a code it still does not match the code the phone shows. I can get it to pair by clicking “next” anyway, but then the phone and computer refuse to connect to each other.

  29. Robert Piasek
    July 29th, 2010 at 17:13 | #29

    Already available on Gentoo in KDE overlay.

  30. July 29th, 2010 at 19:18 | #30

    @TheBlackCat
    Can you report a bug please? is the only way we can track the issue.

  31. TheBlackCat
    July 29th, 2010 at 19:51 | #31

    @afiestas
    Where do I report bugs for this?

  32. vudentz
    July 30th, 2010 at 08:56 | #32

    Great news, the only thing that disappoints me is the use of obex-data-server, obexd should be much more mature nowadays and it is the one BlueZ community maintains.

  33. July 30th, 2010 at 09:19 | #33

    @vudentz
    obexd as server may be more mature than obex-data-server, and in fact we were migrating to it (to obexd), but when developing the kio_obexftp, we noticed that obexd-client is far to been as stable as obex-data-server, so we had to move to obex-data-server again (we can’t wait 6 month until distributions update they obexd packages).

    So, what is the plan now? the plan is still move to obexd when possible, but we’ll do it when it is ready.

  34. Michal
    August 15th, 2010 at 23:01 | #34

    Hi,

    I cannot ‘make’ BlueDevil:

    [ 8%] Building CXX object src/actionplugins/audio/CMakeFiles/audioactionplugin.dir/audio.o
    /home/mp/bluedevil/src/actionplugins/audio/audio.cpp:21:29: error: audio_interface.h: No such file or directory
    /home/mp/bluedevil/src/actionplugins/audio/audio.cpp: In member function ‘virtual void AudioPlugin::startAction()’:
    /home/mp/bluedevil/src/actionplugins/audio/audio.cpp:42: error: ‘OrgBluezAudioInterface’ was not declared in this scope
    /home/mp/bluedevil/src/actionplugins/audio/audio.cpp:42: error: ‘interface’ was not declared in this scope
    /home/mp/bluedevil/src/actionplugins/audio/audio.cpp:42: error: expected type-specifier before ‘OrgBluezAudioInterface’
    /home/mp/bluedevil/src/actionplugins/audio/audio.cpp:42: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘OrgBluezAudioInterface’
    /home/mp/bluedevil/src/actionplugins/audio/audio.cpp:46: error: incomplete type ‘QTimer’ used in nested name specifier
    make[2]: *** [src/actionplugins/audio/CMakeFiles/audioactionplugin.dir/audio.o] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [src/actionplugins/audio/CMakeFiles/audioactionplugin.dir/all] Error 2
    make: *** [all] Error 2

    I am on Kubuntu (using PulseAudio) and the problem resists after upgrading to KDE 4.5 (from KDE 4.4.2). Any hint?

  35. giaur
    August 16th, 2010 at 19:15 | #35

    Sorry, but browsing devices does not work (debian sid) – I mean ObexFTP client. There is 90% scanninf dir progress in Dolphin and then nothing more happens at all.

    Notify me when this is fixed. For now, I’m returning to blueman – this is not ideal (no kde integration), but it works. Browsing devices is matadory for me, so I haven’t check any other features.

  36. August 18th, 2010 at 23:15 | #36

    Thanks for notifying the bug, but please use the appropriated channel to report it so we can track the problem. http://bugs.kde.org

    Thanks!

  37. August 18th, 2010 at 23:15 | #37

    Hi, the issue is fixed now.

    Next time, please indicate from where you are trying to build bluedevil and do it using http://bugs.kde.org , thanks!

  38. Mich
    August 27th, 2010 at 10:21 | #38

    Bluedevil is stable enough in Debian Testing to be used by everybody.

    Install bluedevil in Debian via apt-get install.
    Works perfectly in Konqueror, but
    unable to view files in Dolphin.

    Hope this info helps.

  39. Cae
    August 29th, 2010 at 03:17 | #39

    I use KDE and Fluxbox interchange-ably.

    In KDE4 (Debian), bluedevil is working wonderfully but am unable to get it started in fluxbox on the same machine.

    How can I start bluedevil in fluxbox?

  40. August 31st, 2010 at 19:36 | #40

    BlueDevil is made by more than one component, which component is not working for you?

    Anyway, try by executinig kded4 before.

  41. August 31st, 2010 at 19:37 | #41

    We know the dolphin issue, we hope to fix it before 1.0

  42. Cae
    September 1st, 2010 at 07:15 | #42

    @afiestas

    What I meant was, in KDE4, BlueDevil is started by default (ie there is a bluetooth icon at the systray).

    However, in fluxbox, didn’t know how to start BlueDevil to enable/get the icon at the systray.

  43. Cae
    September 1st, 2010 at 15:25 | #43

    @afiestas

    found it bluedevil-monolithic is package that shows the icon.
    also note that I had kded4 started just in case.

  1. July 28th, 2010 at 11:25 | #1
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