Getting the Apple wireless bluetooth keyboard working with Ubuntu Hardy Heron
I just lost about 3 hours of my life. Hardy apparently has great, but poorly integrated bluetooth support. Here are the steps I had to take to get my bluetooth keyboard working:
- Right click on the bluetooth icon in the notification area of the default Hardy desktop and select preferences
- In the prefenes window select “Visable and connectable for other devices” from the list
- Click the discoverable button on your keyboard, when it shows up in the prefernces window you have open, click on it and click the trust button. You can now close the preferences window.
- Right click on the bluetooth icon a second time, this time selecting browse device.
- Select your keyboard from the list, and click connect.
- When the error pops up about not being able to connect, notice the mac address (perhaps something like 00:1e:52:fc:87:ea) and leave the error message open so you can type it into the terminal.
- From the terminal run the following command without the quotes:
sudo hidd --connect "the mac address from the error message" - Be really happy that you found these instructions instead of pouring through dozens of forum posts with people complaining about their keyboard not working