Bluetooth [was: Re: From a NY Times Bestseller]

Christopher Schmidt crschmidt at crschmidt.net
Tue Jul 11 14:33:00 EDT 2006


On Tue, Jul 11, 2006 at 01:38:54PM -0400, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > The only reason I have a Mac is a combination of hardware and kernel
> > support for a specific purpose: Bluetooth Dial Up Networking. A mac is
> > the only device I could buy 2.5 years ago that would let me trivially
> > set up a connection to the internet via Bluetooth on my Nokia 3650
> > phone. I tried to do this for several weeks in Linux, and have only the
> > loss of hours as a result to report.
> >   
> Takes a bit of configuring, but I have BT working on my FC5 system
> working just fine.  In fact, it's working better than my wireless.  The
> hardest part is figuring out the dial string, and that varies by
> wireless provider (if you have FC5, I might be able to get you the
> scripts I'm using).

Getting it working these days is comparitively trivial. At the time,
there was no kernel released by my distro which had support for
Bluetooth, there were two competing standards for kernel-level
bluetooth, there were few applications, and less documentation. For a
while, I could have quoted you the relevant bits of every Bluetooth set
up webpage out there -- becuase I'd read every single one Google could
find.

Setting up the same thing on my Ubuntu machine about 2 months ago was
easy. As was grabbing data from my Bluetooth GPS. As was grabbing photos
from my cell phone. 

But 2.5 years ago, there was no standards. There was no *anything*.
Bluetooth was a mess, and none of the distros did anything with it.
Patching kernels 8 months into my linux experience was not my favorite
thing to do :)

-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer



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