I recently switched to Bazzite from Pop! and cannot get my Bluetooth to see my Switch Pro controller. It works fine wired, I can connect other devices via Bluetooth, the controller will connect other computers fine.
I’ve tried two different USB Bluetooth adapters on USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports on the front, back and on the extra USB port on my keyboard. I’ve rebooted, restarted the Bluetooth service, and googled the hell out of it, but most problems I’ve seen are from years ago before Linux officially included the Pro controller driver in the kernel.
Did it work before on Pop? If so and you switched distros then you’ll need to re-pair the controller itself (or clear its pairings and re-initiate the pair from the controller before it’s visible to Bazzite) as the controller only remembers the pairing from your old OS install.
It did work before on Pop, and I should have been clearer. When I put the Switch Pro Controller into pair mode and use the KDE Bluetooth module to connect a new Bluetooth device, it doesn’t even see the device. I am able to see and pair other Bluetooth devices without trouble.
I was going to familiarize myself with some terminal Bluetooth commands tomorrow and maybe dig up an old Bluetooth controller to see if it’s specific to controllers.
I have an 8bitdo controller attached and working fine, but it’s got a wired base station that uses 2.4ghz to communicate with. I’d just use the 8bitdo controller, but it doesn’t have a gyro that I need for certain games.
Edit I was able to solve this by using ‘bluetoothctl scan on’. It made the device appear in the KDE Bluetooth settings panel and it paired like normal.
The bluetoothctl scan on allowed me to pair the device, but it never shows up in Steam or other programs and will disconnect after a minute or so. According to this It may be an issue with the current bluez stack, so I’ll keep tinkering. It doesn’t help that “switch” “pro” and “controller” are all independently vague search terms and search engines are getting worse and worse at returning useful information.
Bluez seems to be the culprit. My wife’s computer runs Pop, has ver 5.64 and will pair just fine with my USB Bluetooth adapter and controller. Bazzite has ver 5.77.
