Arch Linux

sskeirik

Member

Registered: 2011-03-13

Posts: 20

Disabling bluetooth

Dear all,

So, I have an hp laptop with a bluetooth module. I want to disable it because I never use it. Playing around with rfkill and rmmod:

$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
2: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
3: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Weird, there are two wlan and two bluetooth modules listed. Investigating further... So, I try to disable bluetooth:

# rfkill block 1 3
$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
2: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
3: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Unfortunately, hp-bluetooth refuses to be disabled. However, I discovered the source of hp-bluetooth.

# rmmod hp_wmi
$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Alright, so hp_wmi makes the extra adapters appear, but it doesn't appear to actually affect the wireless at all. At this point, I can disable bluetooth:

# rmmod bluetooth
$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Or, I could block hci0

# rfkill block 1
$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no

At this point, I'm not sure if bluetooth is truly powered off. Does removing the bluetooth and hp_wmi kernel modules ensure bluetooth is turned off, or just that the OS cannot use it? If I cannot soft block hp-bluetooth, does that mean it is impossible to turn bluetooth off?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you,
Stephen

Method_X

Member

Registered: 2011-04-18

Posts: 8

Re: Disabling bluetooth

Hello to you.

I usually disable bluetooth in my Thinkpad through command line:

echo "disabled" > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth 

Note, you should find your bluetooth device in /proc

Or, you can use rfkill:

rfkill block bluetooth

Last edited by Method_X (2011-12-25 23:02:41)