Bluetooth drivers in Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS are worse than in Xubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

Question

I had both Xubuntu and Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS on my ThinkPad T480s and there is a clear difference of the bluetooth performance between both distros. The Xubuntu distro autoconnects and has no problems finding devices, is also faster. Does anybody know why and how I can get the same bluetooth performance / drivers / interface in Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS as in Xubuntu 18.04.3 LTS?

Here is a video of the behaviour: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1md0_2J5H5dV0w6MdBpUGi9eUyhQMinMr

That seems impossible to me: the drivers across the different Ubuntu versions with the same version number (both the OS and the driver version numbers) are exactly the same. When you use the same connection manager (networkmanager, wicd) that will be the same too. I would suggest to add details to the question: bluetooth driver used, version numbers, etc for both systems for anything related to bluetooth — Rinzwind, Oct 24 '19 at 06:49
"The two distros should be using the same driver so I think you might have rushed to judgment and misattributed your problem." ... Am not sure about this. The bluetooth manager in xubuntu behaves better than ubuntu in t480s and even in t470s. What data should I give you? Should I link a video of how inadequate the bluetooth connect in Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS behaves? I might be wrong about the drivers, but am quite sure that the behaviour is different in both distros. Xubuntu uses blueman-applet, currently I have the version 2.0.5 which behaves quite well. — Кристиян Кацаров, Oct 24 '19 at 08:40
I will link to a video later. But literally I have to click at least 5-6 times on the connect switch, so that the bluetooth on my Ubuntu 18.04.3 connects, while in Xubuntu I rarely connect manually and it autoconnects without problems. — Кристиян Кацаров, Oct 24 '19 at 08:47
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1md0_2J5H5dV0w6MdBpUGi9eUyhQMinMr here you go @Nmath — Кристиян Кацаров, Oct 25 '19 at 16:11
I installed blueman and it is behaving much better now.. seems the integrated bluetooth in ubuntu just sucks :) heavily — Кристиян Кацаров, Oct 25 '19 at 16:14
@КристиянКацаров I wrote just hints so it is not a canonical answer. If you could follow some those debug instructions they may help you find a canonical answer. — user.dz, Oct 26 '19 at 09:02

user.dz · Answer 1 · 2019-10-26T09:56:42.593

0

Chinese proverb: Go the mountain and meet the tiger.

In other words, It is a probably a difficult path to fix it.

Such cases dealing with hardware related issues need specific experience, which only few users may have. So we may not find a direct answer.

Generic path

Look for "debug" & "troubleshooting" instruction

wiki.ubuntu.com - DebuggingBluetooth

May check other distribution with same stack

wiki.archlinux.org - Bluetooth #Troubleshooting

An interesting tool hcidump to get verbose logs, check for use cases here in AU or Unix.SE.

Note: Documentation changes slower than tools themselves, so watch for last update date on web-pages and trust local man-pages.
Most debug instructions at some point, ask to test the edge development code or binary build.

If the Bluetooth device is a USB one (like major laptops), then it is possible to try any testing setup without touching your current production system using VirtualBox with the extension pack.
Ask Ubuntu a question or Submit a Bug Report (Ubuntu/LP or may be Upstream project). This is up to your evaluation where previously collected data are leading to.

edited Oct 26 '19 at 09:56

answered Oct 26 '19 at 08:49

user.dz

48,105

1

Interesting, Xubuntu behaves perfectly normal, while normal Ubuntu is buggy, as a normal user I really do not want to dive deeply into technical logs and debugging – Кристиян Кацаров Oct 26 '19 at 09:33
And by the way the thinkpads are "ubuntu certified" – Кристиян Кацаров Oct 26 '19 at 09:34
Thanks for the help anyway.. – Кристиян Кацаров Oct 26 '19 at 09:38
@КристиянКацаров no problem, I won't say " Chinese proverb: Go the mountain and meet the tiger." :) myself many times prefered workaround than losing concentration on side issues. May be I'm actually saying that in my answer, let me edit it. – user.dz Oct 26 '19 at 09:51
1

I could spend like 3-4 hours to debug it and solve this problem, BUT: the t480s I bought costs over 2000 euros and ubuntu actively says it is certified. Why should I solve ubuntu's or Lenovo's problems? I decided to post the question in askubuntu, not in power user, as I was hoping for a not so deep technical solution. – Кристиян Кацаров Oct 26 '19 at 09:56
Well I found out the following: if the devices is turned on AFTER the bluetooth is enabled in ubuntu, autoconnect works fine. I am not sure if Ubuntu does something here and it is not the speaker autoconnecting though... – Кристиян Кацаров Oct 27 '19 at 11:26

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 29 '19 at 23:35

There are hundreds of bluetooth posts in Ask Ubuntu but we can narrow it down to your needs:

How do I get a Bluetooth speaker to auto-connect at login?

The 18.04 answer here describes how to make the device auto-connect from the command line and then how to incorporate it into an automated script with no human interaction.

For 16.04 users a similar answer exists:

Autoconnect to a bluetooth speaker in Ubuntu 16.04

If you have problems in 18.04 with blueman automatically disconnecting this might be helpful:

Is there any way by which I can stop Bluetooth from turning off by itself?

Ubuntu 18 auto connects and the connection works actually, but the bluetooth speaker has to be turned on after the bluetooth has been turned on on Ubuntu. If you turn on the speaker first and load Ubuntu, nothing happens, it behaves quite inadequate — Кристиян Кацаров, Oct 30 '19 at 05:19

Bluetooth drivers in Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS are worse than in Xubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

2 Answers2