Need advice: bluez on older Linux kernel?

Need advice: bluez on older Linux kernel?

[Jim Hollister]

I need to add Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) capability to an ARM-based embedded
system that's currently based on Ubuntu Lucid 11.04 and Linux kernel 2.6.35.
I've read that BLE support in bluez requires Linux kernel version 3.5 or
later. At this point, I think this leaves me with four options:

A) Upgrade the embedded system to a recent Linux kernel >= 3.5
B) Backport the most recent bluez to run on Linux kernel 2.6.35
C) Combine both approaches A and C, so that the embedded system and bluez
meet at a kernel version somewhere between 2.6.35 and 3.5
D) Find a different BLE stack that will run on Linux kernel 2.6.35. I see a
number of those described at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_stack#Embedded_implementations

I would much prefer to use bluez, but I'm concerned about the effort
involved in upgrading the embedded system, and I don't know anything about
the feasibility of backporting bluez. Would some kind and knowledgeable
person please give me some advice or an opinion about how I should approach
this?

Thank you,

Jim Hollister

Re: Need advice: bluez on older Linux kernel?

[Szymon Janc]

Hi Jim,

On Wednesday 02 April 2014 11:10:02 Jim Hollister wrote:
> I need to add Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) capability to an ARM-based embedded
> system that's currently based on Ubuntu Lucid 11.04 and Linux kernel
> 2.6.35. I've read that BLE support in bluez requires Linux kernel version
> 3.5 or later. At this point, I think this leaves me with four options:
> 
> A) Upgrade the embedded system to a recent Linux kernel >= 3.5
> B) Backport the most recent bluez to run on Linux kernel 2.6.35
> C) Combine both approaches A and C, so that the embedded system and bluez
> meet at a kernel version somewhere between 2.6.35 and 3.5
> D) Find a different BLE stack that will run on Linux kernel 2.6.35. I see a
> number of those described at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_stack#Embedded_implementations
> 
> I would much prefer to use bluez, but I'm concerned about the effort
> involved in upgrading the embedded system, and I don't know anything about
> the feasibility of backporting bluez. Would some kind and knowledgeable
> person please give me some advice or an opinion about how I should approach
> this?

I suggest using backports project [1] to update Linux Bluetooth subsystem in 
kernel. Also best would be to use latest available release.

[1] http://backports.wiki.kernel.org

-- 
Szymon K. Janc
szymon.janc@gmail.com