HOWTO: Apple Wireless Keyboard (Bluetooth)

[stevenjoseph]

damn, its not working again ... broke after another upgrade, this time the previous fix is not working ... anyone experiencing the same problem.

[ScottKinkade]

I have the new apple bluetooth keyboard (aluminum) and i am typing on it right now, so it's connected, but apparently the keyboard has an automatic sleep feature meaning it goes to sleep and thus, disconnects with my computer and therefore i have to go to teminal and type: sudo hidd --connect 00:1E:52:F8:63:40 every time i come back to my computer. This is quite an issue since i have to TYPE that in to connect the device i need to type it with... Is there some way to make it automatically connect? Or is there some way to make a little executable file that does that command for me??? I have Gutsy and I need some help...

[xr2]

I'm trying to get this to work with the new slim keyboard I just picked up, but every time I try to use hid --connect xxx.. I get the following message:

Can't create HID control channel: Connection refused

I run the command from the terminal, hit 0000 <enter> on the apple keyboard, and then I get that message. I get the impression that I supposed to see some form of pop up in which to enter the pin, but I see nothing of the sort.

[click170]

Thanks! This was exactly what I needed to get my Apple bluetooth keyboard to work!

Much appreciated.

[stevenjoseph]

finally got the keyboard working perfectly..... here is my hcid.conf
--------------------------hcid.conf------------------------
options {
autoinit yes;
security auto;
pairing multi;
passkey "1234";
}
device {
name "%h-%d";
class 0x100100;
iscan enable; pscan enable;
discovto 0;
lm accept;
lp rswitch,hold,sniff,park;
}
device 00:1B:63:FB:2E:97 {
name "Apple Wireless Keyboard";
auth disable;
encrypt disable;
}
-----------------------end--------------------------------
----------------------default/bluetooth------------
BLUETOOTH_ENABLED=1

HIDD_ENABLED=1
HIDD_OPTIONS="--master --server --connect 00:1B:63:FB:2E:97"
----------------------end----------------------------

[Oliver_U]

I've been trying things left and right for hours now, but always get stuck at the same place.

When I type in sudo hidd --connect XX:XX[...], it sits there waiting for the pin to be entered on the wireless keyboard. Whatever I enter, I get the error message: "Can't create HID control channel: Connection refused"

I've tried with and without --master, using auth/encrypt disable aswell as auth/encrypt enable. No deal.

I do see that others have the same problem, so any help would be appreciated by more people than just me.

Oh, it should also be noted that I can't get the bluetooth icon to show up in my systray, even when manually trying to make it always show up in bluetooth-properties. Nevertheless, I am able to do hidd --search and find the keyboard, so the bluetooth dongle works fine. It's just this last thing that is somehow botched up.

[Chokkan]

My dongle is never detected. I had to start bluetooth-applet from the command line. It would often crash saying out of memory but after a few tries it worked and I never have to start it again. My new keyboard and Microsoft mouse are detected every time now without fail at boot.

So in short, don't give up.

[Oliver_U]

That worked perfectly, big thanks! (typing this with my new keyboard)

[Chokkan]

Great It's a fantastic keyboard, isn't it? I even set up the eject button

I'm using xfce so maybe that was why I had trouble with the applet.

[xale]

voilà, i'm a (un)happy owneer of a nice bluetooth alu keyoboard.

i've tried to use it with hardy (8.04) beta. well it kind of works, now.

i followed several howtos and several of them lead to no working keyboard...

however i've done the steps listed in here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ma...0fef309975855d

i don't know if the changes to the /etc files are necessary to bring it to work. i will try at the next clean install.


then i've found a bug report with a link to a fedora post

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...8&postcount=22

that fedora post (http://forum.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=908776) says:

>> Thats a bad UI case. Do NOT right-click -> Browse Device for input devices.

Right-click on the bluetooth applet and select "Preferences", go to the "Services" tab, left-click on "Input service", click the "Add" button, select your input device & connect. <<

that way i brought it work.


still, it doesn't work with the bios and grub (the first it ouf the reach of ubuntu, the second.. well... it could work...)

for gdm i haven't find a pattern yet: it doesn't work at a first (and second and co try) but if you press enough times (and maybe enough long ) on the power button of the keyboard, you will be able to enter you username and password with it!

voilà. and, then, it works well!

ciao
a.l.e