After way too much fiddling around, I got my phone to talk to my Gentoo laptop via Bluetooth. This is one of the pictures I took at the Highland Games last Saturday. I didn’t get haggis, though, since I’d already gotten a sausage spiced like a traditional haggis. Maybe next time.

Anyway, here’s how I got the LG Rumor 2 to talk to a Linux box using Bluetooth: First, make sure all the kernel modules you need are loaded (modprobe btusb did it for me.) Second, edit /etc/dbus-1/system.d/bluetooth.conf and change the default policy from “deny” to “allow” (or add yourself to the “plugdev” group.) Third, add the line net-wireless/blueman ~x86 to your /etc/portage/package.keywords file, and the line >=net-wireless/blueman-1.10 to your /etc/portage/package.unmask file. Fourth, emerge blueman. Fifth, start up blueman-assistant and select your phone in the list that shows up. Enter a PIN and then enter the same PIN on the phone. Trust that device. Sixth, start up blueman-services and change the transfer settings so that file receiving is enabled, you have a shared directory like ~/pics/phone/ , and you accept files from trusted devices. Finally, in the phone’s menu, go to Bluetooth->Send Files, select the files you want to send, and hit OK.

This was much more difficult than it shoud’ve been. Years ago, it was much easier to transfer files from a Nokia phone. I didn’t have to screw around with settings, or install unstable software. But the state of Linux Bluetooth support has actually gotten worse over the last few years. I don’t know why this is, but it’s a tremendous pain in the ass.

(However, I was totally unable to transfer files to/from my phone using Windows, despite fooling around with it for an hour. . . .)