Upgrading the Bluetooth (Bluez) stack on Ubuntu

March 13, 2024 -

Tags: bluetooth, bluez, hardware, linux, quick, sysadmin, ubuntu

In some cases, it’s desirable to upgrade the Bluez (Bluetooth stack) version on Ubuntu; for example, on the stock Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy, some headphones may not work.

In this article, I’ll describe the procedure to perform the upgrade, using the source code.

Content:

Procedure

Procedure

First, install the required libraries:

apt install -y libical3-dev python3-docutils

Find the latest release on the official repository:

latest_release=$(
  git ls-remote https://github.com/bluez/bluez.git |
  perl -lne 'print $1 if /refs\/tags\/([\d.]+)$/' |
  sort -V |
  tail -n 1
)

Perform a shallow clone:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/bluez/bluez.git -b "$latest_release"
cd bluez

Bootstrap and configure the compilation:

./bootstrap

# The `--libexecdir` is required to match the Ubuntu paths configuration, otherwise, `/usr/libexec
# is used by default.
#
./configure \
  --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var \
  --libexecdir=/usr/lib

Compile and install:

make -j "$(nproc)"

# The file `/usr/lib/cups/backend/bluetooth` is also owned by the `bluez-cups` package; it's not
# clear if it needs to be up to date, but if one doesn't use it, it doesn't matter.
# In theory, the `--disable-cups` configure option can be used, but it causes a configure error
# (not mentioned by the documentation).
#
make install

Finally, hold the bluez package:

apt-mark hold bluez

As general practice, it’s advisable to watch the repository releases on the GitHub project, so that one can perform an upgrade, especially in case of a security fix.

Upgrading the Bluetooth (Bluez) stack on Ubuntu

Procedure

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