Bluetooth keyboard pairing?

I've just installed Zorin 8 on my Acer Iconia W700 (tablet PC).

Specs:
- Intel i3, Intel video, 4GB RAM, 64GB SSD, touch screen
Zorin installs fine, but Bluetooth is giving me a bit of trouble.

The tablet has a "built-in" Bluetooth keyboard (in the carry case). If I start up the Bluetooth "Set up new device", I can easily and quickly pair a BT mouse. Based on this, the BT radio is working and at least some devices can be paired.

When I try to pair the keyboard, I can see the keyboard as a device (when it is in paring mode). If I try pairing using "Automatic PIN selection", the keyboard generates a one-time paring code. If I type it in using the keyboard and hit enter, the pairing fails. Setting the PIN Options to "Do not pair" doesn't make any difference - the idea being that I could at least temporarily use the keyboard in unpaired mode... the keyboard still fails to work.

I'm not sure where to go with this to try and get it working... any ideas?

Hi smaug42, and welcome to Zorin. Please let us know if this helps:

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/howto-setup-b ... buntu.html

Hi.

Those instructions are missing a lot of the finer details.. and a lot of what it tells you to do isn't really applicable anymore.

Anyway, I can sort of pair the keyboard using some of the info from the provided link. Before starting the instructions, the BT mouse was already paired and working.
- There is no existing /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf file... I created it to test the instructions
- There is no existing /etc/default/bluez-utils file... I created it to test the instructions
- When I do an hidd --search, it sees the keyboard, but no PIN is shown/requested (it should request this, but doesn't).
- Pairing can be done in temporary insecure mode (without PIN)

Doing this, the keyboard is paired in insecure mode and this will not survive a screen lock or a reboot.

So no real solution yet.

Hi, and sorry about the out-of-date link - I don't use bluetooth that much so bear with me. I opened Synaptic Package Manager (just enter 'synaptic' in the search bar) - you will need to provide your login password to escalate your privileges to 'root' to install any missing bluetooth packages - there are quite a few - take your time to look through the list - left-click on any item and a description appears in the bottom right-hand pane:



Sorry I can't be of more help!

Looks like I'm going to be totally out of luck on this.

OK, see you have been having the same issue with OpenSUSE (http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.p ... h-keyboard). I also realised that the hardware was built for Windows 8 - so I guess this is the same old issue - proprietary hardware vendors not preparing to allow drivers fof GNU/Linux - of course I COULD be wrong!

Just found this:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/92061/ho ... th-to-work

It would appear that reading through the last link above, that 12.04 of Ubuntu gave the best results, which means ... downgrading to Zorin 6 LTS which is based on Ubuntu 12.04 - you could try removing the current kernel and downgrading to an earlier one but do not know how this would affect the system.

The openSUSE one has changed a bit. The latest release (13.1) gets a bit further, as in with Bluez5 I can attempt to pair without CLI tools, but fails in a similar manner. I've seen forum posts where people claim it works and that they had no prob pairing using Ubuntu based distros.

I'm really unfamiliar with Ubuntu based Linux... I'm still poking at it and trying to find a way to make it work. The magic aha button is there somewhere. The silly thing sort of works... it just won't pair permanently.

Hi,

hope this helps.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/362402/u ... 10-upgrade

Regards Wolfman