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#1 2014-01-26 19:40:49

jhoechtl
Member
Registered: 2014-01-26
Posts: 4

Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

Currently I use Kubuntu 13.10. Generally it doesn't let me down. For reasons I will give Arch a try. I have some very important questions I do not want to waste to much time on and I hope people may help me out. I will construct a valid use-case to make it clear.

Distributions currently package bluez4, but bluez5 is real since +9 months. http://www.afiestas.org/bluedevil-2-0-r … ez5-ready/
Developer complain, that distributions do not catch on faster.  http://www.afiestas.org/demand-a-kde-ex … tribution/
Unfortunately, bluez5 brings in the dependency on pulseaudio5, which has the major regression NOT to handle the bluetooth HFP as of now. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Softwar … Notes/5.0/
and support for it still requires substantial work https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73325#c7

I really require HFP (eg. Skype bluetooth headset) so my question is:

Let's assume I pull the plug and go for a rolling Arch system (I like the idea)
* Can I relatively easy specify, that bluez should stay at whatever latest stable (or developer) version 4 with required components, so that HFP in Kubuntu using pulseaudio works?
* Once bluez5 with oFono / pulseaudio is announced to support HFP again, do the switch to bluez5 / bluedevil 2.0 with other required components (e.g. pulseaudio 5)

Greetings, Johann

PS: Sorry, if this post doesn't fit in here, first-time poster.

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#2 2014-01-26 19:57:25

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

You won't find bluez 4 in the official repos, it's in the AUR https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/bluez4/ and it conflicts with bluez 5 https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/bl/bluez4/PKGBUILD so you install one or the other.

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#3 2014-01-26 20:05:15

Shark
Member
From: /dev/zero
Registered: 2011-02-28
Posts: 684

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

Bluez 5 is in official repository:

Repository     : extra
Name           : bluez
Version        : 5.14-1
Description    : Daemons for the bluetooth protocol stack
Architecture   : i686
URL            : http://www.bluez.org/
Licenses       : GPL2
Groups         : None
Provides       : None
Depends On     : libical  dbus  glib2
Optional Deps  : None
Conflicts With : obexd-client  obexd-server
Replaces       : None
Download Size  : 350.40 KiB
Installed Size : 1247.00 KiB
Packager       : Andreas Radke <andyrtr@archlinux.org>
Build Date     : Tue 21 Jan 2014 01:44:23 PM CET
Validated By   : MD5 Sum  SHA256 Sum  Signature

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau

Registered Linux User: #559057

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#4 2014-01-26 20:12:45

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

Shark wrote:

Bluez 5 is in official repository

And?

jhoechtl wrote:

Let's assume I pull the plug and go for a rolling Arch system (I like the idea)
* Can I relatively easy specify, that bluez should stay at whatever latest stable (or developer) version 4 with required components, so that HFP in Kubuntu using pulseaudio works?

I can't answer this question, because I don't know if you need any package that relies specifically on bluez 5 and won't work with bluez 4.
No, you're not forced to upgrade / replace bluez 4 with bluez 5 if all your installed applications work with bluez 4. Yes, keeping bluez 4 is possible.

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#5 2014-01-26 20:18:29

Shark
Member
From: /dev/zero
Registered: 2011-02-28
Posts: 684

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

karol wrote:
Shark wrote:

Bluez 5 is in official repository

And?

jhoechtl wrote:

Let's assume I pull the plug and go for a rolling Arch system (I like the idea)
* Can I relatively easy specify, that bluez should stay at whatever latest stable (or developer) version 4 with required components, so that HFP in Kubuntu using pulseaudio works?

I can't answer this question, because I don't know if you need any package that relies specifically on bluez 5 and won't work with bluez 4.
No, you're not forced to upgrade / replace bluez 4 with bluez 5 if all your installed applications work with bluez 4. Yes, keeping bluez 4 is possible.

Ouh, man, i flew away smile

Sorry ...


If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau

Registered Linux User: #559057

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#6 2014-01-26 22:38:24

sitquietly
Member
From: On the Wolf River
Registered: 2010-07-12
Posts: 219

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

jhoechtl wrote:

Currently I use Kubuntu 13.10. Generally it doesn't let me down. For reasons I will give Arch a try. I have some very important questions I do not want to waste to much time.....
* Can I relatively easy specify, that bluez should stay at whatever latest stable (or developer) version 4 with required components, so that HFP in Kubuntu using pulseaudio works?
...

I suspect that you're looking into exactly the wrong distro for your needs.  It is typical of Arch to switch to new versions of lower level libraries as soon as new stable versions are released.  There is no allowance for other projects that utilize those libraries to slowly adapt to them and accommodate to them.  It is not considered a packaging error here to break some functionality by doing so; it is considered to be an upstream problem.  Of course eventually all upstream projects will accommodate the new library, e.g. bluez5, and Arch will quickly incorporate those fixed versions, e.g. bluedevil.  The interim can be months long and quite frustrating to some users.  In the major distros that you've been using such as Kubuntu it is not generally acceptable to incorporate any change that is known to break functionality so some libraries may be kept back at "old" versions for a while.

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#7 2014-01-26 23:09:29

Awebb
Member
Registered: 2010-05-06
Posts: 6,275

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

Have a look at the packages page. Bluez does not require pulseaudio at all, it's an optional dependency. Maybe it is not bluez, maybe you should get rid of pulseaudio (like a subjective/imaginary majority of the Arch crowd did). I have yet to encounter a setup, where pulseaudio would not complicate everything. I used KDE without pulse, the KDE sound solution, although sucking at least as much as pulse, did not require any pulse at all.

This is why we use Arch: We find our problems and fix them. As you can see, it is not bluez that breaks your HFP. Stop thinking in the way you would in Ubuntu. You do no longer start with a certain system and fix it by removing parts, you start from the scratch and add other parts. There is probably a more elegant way to use HFP without the thing that breaks support.

EDIT: It is actually that kind of mindset, that will let you run in circles on such problems. You asked about bluez, although you knew, that pulse causes trouble. Also be adviced, that the usual response is: "If you have to ask this question, then Arch is not for you." Just wait for Allan to show up and tell you, that Arch sucks.

Last edited by Awebb (2014-01-26 23:12:19)

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#8 2014-01-27 05:04:19

jhoechtl
Member
Registered: 2014-01-26
Posts: 4

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

@Awebb: I certainly came here with the attitude, that Arch is great. It has superior help and usage forums and having the latest and greatest in a rolling manner is what I like. I would have hoped for a way that individual users are able to "pin" packages to a certain version, if it is known to be a source of problems.

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#9 2014-01-27 05:19:11

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

It is discouraged, but it is possible. Read the manual for pacman.conf.

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#10 2014-01-27 06:10:54

Allan
Pacman
From: Brisbane, AU
Registered: 2007-06-09
Posts: 11,365
Website

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

Awebb wrote:

Just wait for Allan to show up and tell you, that Arch sucks.

Ahem...  Awebb makes a good point...

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#11 2014-01-27 20:48:32

jhoechtl
Member
Registered: 2014-01-26
Posts: 4

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

Thank you for the replies that far, although some didn't make to much confidence:

>  The interim can be months long and quite frustrating to some users.

I read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Do … g_Packages. So when I install a fresh Arch and would pull KDE by the virtue of
pacman -S kde
I have to go the donwgrade road after bluez5 got on my system. Quite hard since I would not have that cache as described in "Downgrading packages"

Thanks for being frank. In the meantime I wonder how you guys handle your bluetooth headsets. Actually none of them should work as a MIC. But that's OT here.

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#12 2014-01-27 20:50:14

progandy
Member
Registered: 2012-05-17
Posts: 5,184

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

I have to go the donwgrade road after bluez5 got on my system. Quite hard since I would not have that cache as described in "Downgrading packages"

bluez4 is in the AUR, so you just have to compile it yourself, you don't need a cached package.


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#13 2014-01-27 20:54:19

jhoechtl
Member
Registered: 2014-01-26
Posts: 4

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

@progandy Would I have to figure out further dependencies as bluez4 & bluez5 are incompatible?

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#14 2014-01-27 21:10:10

frank604
Member
From: BC, Canada
Registered: 2011-04-20
Posts: 1,212

Re: Depencie of packages OR: should I make the switch to Arch

progandy wrote:

I have to go the donwgrade road after bluez5 got on my system. Quite hard since I would not have that cache as described in "Downgrading packages"

bluez4 is in the AUR, so you just have to compile it yourself, you don't need a cached package.

Also as a tip, even if bluez4 was not in AUR but instead was an older package that is no longer in your cache, There is the roll back machine, located in the downgrading packages wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Do … g_Packages
Since it is in the AUR, I highly recommend reading the AUR wiki, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ar … Repository
Which explains how to manually build as well as use a wrapper.  Good luck!

Edit:

jhoechtl wrote:

@progandy Would I have to figure out further dependencies as bluez4 & bluez5 are incompatible?

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/bluez/
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/bluez4/

Last edited by frank604 (2014-01-27 21:13:40)

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