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My first posting - UBUNTU newbie, but I am learning fast.

I have installed UB 20.04 onto my old Thinkpad T61 - with a 120GB SSD and 8GB RAM. Installed like a breeze. I am hoping to make this a replacement for my HomeSeer system on another Thinkpad running Windows 7.

I would really like to have BT 5.0 working on this laptop for the HomeSeer system. I bought one of these [USB Bluetooth Adapter for PC, QGOO Mini Bluetooth 5.0 EDR Dongle for Desktop Computer][1] - I got it yesterday, and oddly found after installing in the laptop - it does not work. I went back and did more research and found not supported in Linux. :-(

I can see it if I run the lsusb command:

root@UB-ThinkPad-T61:~# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0bda:8771 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bluetooth Radio
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0483:2016 STMicroelectronics Fingerprint Reader
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

I did a little research to find this command, but not finding any way to get it to turn ON. in Settings, it shows "No Bluetooth Found - plug in a dongle".

Any help is appreciated - I can return this one, and get one which works...provided I can get a list of supported USB BT5.0 adapters.

Thanks in advance, Curtis

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  • Edimax BT-8500. The official website claims that it's supported by Linux kernel 2.6.32 - 5.3. I found a reddit user who bought it and says it works on Ubuntu 20.04.
    – Eric L
    Nov 30, 2021 at 2:15
  • Asus USB BT500 claims to have Linux support, but doesn't list kernel versions.
    – Eric L
    Nov 30, 2021 at 2:30
  • Just to update, I bought the Edimax BT-8500 dongle today and can confirm that it works with Ubuntu 20.04.2 with kernel version 5.11.0-40. It works out of the box, but I did have to go into sound settings to change the output configuration from "Headset Head Unit (HSP/HFP)" to "High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)" to make stereo audio work.
    – Eric L
    Dec 2, 2021 at 2:07

1 Answer 1

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I created a long research document with the currently supported Bluetooth 5+ adapters on Linux. You can read the full report here on medium, in a nutshell, here are the devices I can recommend:

  • USB: Realtek RTL8761B, RTL8761BU and RTL8852BE. A good trick is to search for USB dongles which are supporting RaspberryPi, as you might be able to find different ones as well.
  • NGFF: Intel AX210 - but be careful about CNVio and CNVio2 (depends on your notebook!)
  • PCIe: you can use NGFF adapters, so you can use these in your stationary machines.
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