Bluetooth not working on an Alienware m14x r2

on my alienware m14x r2 laptop with ubuntu 12.04.1 x64, the bluetooth interface is not working. WLAN works fine.

I have a dualboot install with ubuntu & win 7 on this laptop. In win 7, the bluetooth interface works fine, because its all activated in BIOS.

I have the killer wireless-n 1202 a/g/n interface with integrated bluetooth 4.0 in this laptop.

Here is some code :

sudo rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 064e:8128 Suyin Corp.
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0cf3:3004 Atheros Communications, Inc.
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 187c:0521 Alienware Corporation
dmesg | grep "Bluetooth"
[ 2.590377] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.16
[ 2.590395] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[ 2.590397] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[ 2.590399] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[ 2.590403] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[ 2.591518] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[ 2.591519] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[ 2.599411] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[ 2.599415] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[ 2.599416] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11
[ 2.696552] Bluetooth: Generic Bluetooth USB driver ver 0.6
[ 2.696751] Bluetooth: Atheros AR30xx firmware driver ver 1.0
[ 2.702607] Bluetooth: Configuration file not found ar3k/ramps_0x11020000_40.dfu
[ 2.702609] Bluetooth: Loading sysconfig file failed

Any ideas to fix that problem ?

1 Answer

Here's your problem:

[ 2.702607] Bluetooth: Configuration file not found ar3k/ramps_0x11020000_40.dfu

The file is present in the latest kernel-firmware from OpenSuSE and several other distributions but ubuntu doesn't have it. As this file is a configuration file, albeit not a plain-text one, I suggest you an experiment: get this package from openSuSE, extract it, find the file you're missing (as your dmesg says) and place it in /lib/firmware/ar3k/ directory (don't forget to change permissions and ownership, should be the same as other files in that directory). Alternatively download the missing file from the kernel repository itself.

Unfortunately I can't verify that this solution will work, as I don't have Ubuntu anywhere within my grasp.