> Linux doesn't support bluetooth headphones for example.
That’s not true. I’ve been using Bluetooth on Linux since 2015, on at least 3 different machines. I hate to be a Linux trope, but you probably haven’t set it up right. Finding the right distro will be key to your Linux experience, because the good distros make these things easy. The right distro won’t require anything beyond a GUI to pair with your BT device, if that’s what you want.
> Linux doesn't support bluetooth headphones for example.
This is not generally correct. I've been using bluetooth headphones with my Linux desktop computer at work all day, and probably over a decade in total. Closer to two.
I don't doubt your negative experience or that it's an interesting data point, but let's not stick to factually incorrect things, either.
> did anything lead you to use non-bluetooth wireless devices
Not really. I just had them ["non-bluetooth wireless devices"] laying around and I think the non-Bluetooth ones are cheaper.
> I'm wondering if the future of Linux might be abandoning bluetooth entirely.
Abandoning Bluetooth just because your experience was unsatisfactory is not something I agree with at all, sorry. IME, Bluetooth support is completely fine for all the Bluetooth devices I have (like speakers or my cell phone)—and I know others who haven't had any issues either.
Besides, Android uses the Linux kernel. While I don't know if Android uses Bluetooth drivers from the mainline kernel, if it does, that would just make Android's life harder while pointless removing something that usually works fine.
> I’ve had a ton issues on Windows with Bluetooth and I know it’s not the hardware because on Linux it works fine.
This isn’t enough to tell you it’s not the hardware: you’d still need to check that it’s not, say, Linux being more tolerant of errors or not supporting a particular feature that the other stack is using. I know at least one person who had some long rant like that about audio, and then updated their Linux distribution to find that the newer bluez failed the same way.
> Linux Bluetooth is incredibly painful to handle in a headless way. Binding to DBus requires cross-compiler magic and not even Cross was getting me out of it.
That was my experience as well. I was doing something different so ultimately I just decided I'd put both the devices on the same WiFi network and then scan for "pi.local".
Do wish I knew how all those other crates work though where it crashes at runtime if you don't have a library instead of refusing to build.
> Plugging in an external monitor may or may not work. Audio may or may not switch like folks are used to.
> Want to use bluetooth? It might work.
Sounds like the problem of installing Linux on a hardware designed for Windows. All those things work flawlessly on my Purism Librem 15, which came with preinstalled Linux. (Ok, I did not try Bluetooth, but saw reports that it works.)
> Why spend a ton of resources supporting every operating system and hardware combination...
Making it so Android users can update their bluetooth headphones is not supporting every hardware combination. Adding a OSD to your monitor so people don't need OS X specific software to change their monitor settings is not supporting every operating system or hardware combination.
> Erm... The old drivers stopped working with this particular device?
Samsung simply stopped producing Linux drivers. Indeed if you look at https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/index.html there is more than a few years gap here. Also, if you look at the newer drivers support page now that some models have maximum support versions https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/supported.html where I persume you are ... if you update -- and "obviously" you can't not to update because eventually some API breaks the driver. My printer broke in 2010 with an Ubuntu update.
> Very few companies can write sensibly working software that would run under Linux.
Which is the problem itself. You got it in one.
> You get pretty much the same under Windows, though you don't see it as clearly.
It's possible I do not see it clearly but the only Bluetooth problem I had was the April Creators update mysteriously changing Chrome to use the internal soundcard which was solved in two clicks in Eartrumpet (which was new to me -- finding that software took a little time). I have yet to meet any of the problems listed: every wifi and VPN I have yet seen have Windows support (and IT is so much more prepared to help if there is a problem), the Bluetooth stack actually didn't break, nor have Windows upgrades haven't broken my MFC yet (although I guess I need to wait -- but how long? I have seen people install HP LaserJet 4 on Win 10 with some struggle). And as I mentioned, my Thunderbolt eGPU just works. Are you saying it would just work on Linux...? Come now.
I love Linux to pieces and I run it on servers and use the userspace components still but I am writing to warn people: it is still not the year of Linux on desktop and probably never will be. Or, if you so prefer, it finally is, it's just Linux on the Windows desktop.
Only in the sense that the bluetooth maintainers never completed the port to D-Bus. So, 25% of what you need to do with bluetooth needs to be done via kernel anyway.
Bluetooth on Linux is a prime example of how open source can fail.
>- wireless networking - works great if you're willing to do a bit of research before buying, instead of just dropping Linux on any garbage PC and expecting it to work flawlessly, (why won't you try that with macOS and report back?)
Why doesn't Linux track actual hardware proved to be compatible. Each year the same 'bit of research' with no guarantees at all. Oh, wait, Linux does not — because it isn't a Product.
> Yet, name one problem you had with sound on linux in the past year?
A month ago with Ubuntu 14.04 - paired with a bluetooth speaker, but would not send any audio to it (A2DP) without any indication as to how to diagnose or correct the issue.
> The state of development of the various GNU/ Linux distributions has reached a point where everything "just works".
Not really. I'd argue it has actually gotten worse in recent years, unless you enjoy using ancient hardware.
Support for 802.11ac chipsets in particular has been bad in my experience: Intel only works properly with very recent kernels, Broadcom and Qualcomm/Atheros tend to be buggy or they don't work at all. Or they're just barely working and essential features like, oh, using the 5 GHz band, are missing. And these are the three vendors whose chipsets you'll find most commonly in Laptops at the moment.
I guess it's possible I was just very unlucky.
OP also mentions Bluetooth, which I would agree is a bad joke on Linux. The whole stack seems to be garbage.
And of course, if you have a Laptop with anything other than Intel graphics, you might as well not even bother.
All of this – except maybe the Bluetooth part – is of course mostly a problem of hardware vendors being indifferent or even hostile towards Linux, but that does not change the fact that very often it does not "just work". You need to pick your hardware very carefully.
> I was a PulseAudio early adopter and like it better than raw ALSA since it covers more use cases like Bluetooth and provides some extra features.
The last time I had Bluetooth audio actually work, it was before it needed to be routed through pulse. Alsa applications played Bluetooth audio just fine. Then at some dist-upgrade it pulled in a new bluez and that no longer worked, and I literally could not get it working through pulse.
I actually have this experience 100% of the time with pulse: introduce pulse and everything breaks. When things talk to lower level pieces it works fine.
By the way, alsa itself is a little bit of a case study in confusion between api and implementation... My freebsd machines are using the oss audio API with none of the problems that plagued oss on Linux in the 90s.
Why? This sounds like it's supposed to be inefficient.
> limited drivers support to a small set of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other common devices (based on who's willing to pay)
Also why? The Linux kernel has all the support for free.
That it's open source would be a precondition for me. The closest to what you're proposing is Elementary OS, which I would likely pay for if I was still using it.
> Regarding the original article's question Can you tell my how many steps . . . Ubuntu for example without Bluetooth support?, its not actually that bad
Finally. I'm surprised at how many posters here deflected this point, because last I checked it's actually really easy on major distros.
I guess that tells us something about how many Linux users on HN have ever compiled their kernel, that most were like "LOL why?" and not "sure, it's easy".
> You can also say it works on BSD (macOS), but that has no relation to other BSD flavors.
I still don’t get your point. I never said tidal on Linux supported atmos. I said audiophile devices are almost universally running embedded Linux and implied they have had a superior audio stack for a long time, which they have. Additionally I said android direct has had Atmos support for years.
> Tidal doesn't seem to support it on Windows:
I mean I literally just tested it. You’re taking that quote completely out of context, it has nothing to do with windows and doesn’t mention windows. The question you failed to include was:
> Does Dolby Atmos work over headphones (e.g. headphones connected to your TV)?
>No, you cannot get the Dolby Atmos experience on TIDAL using headphones connected to living room devices.
That’s specifically referencing hooking up Bluetooth headphones to your TV. Not windows.
> I've seen firsthand the issues that come with trying to get a distro to interop with Bluetooth, sound, and software not quite designed for it.
These issues crop up on bleeding-edge hardware due to different distros running differently-timed versions of the same underlying components. They fade away over time as software versions start supporting the formerly-bleeding-edge hardware across the board, and the issues invariably shift to the next bleeding-edge hardware release. This is not an immutable fact about the ecosystem, it's a consequence of wanting something to function before it's fully ready for serious use.
That’s not true. I’ve been using Bluetooth on Linux since 2015, on at least 3 different machines. I hate to be a Linux trope, but you probably haven’t set it up right. Finding the right distro will be key to your Linux experience, because the good distros make these things easy. The right distro won’t require anything beyond a GUI to pair with your BT device, if that’s what you want.
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