James Emmrich

Ok, this seemed to be a headache for a good hour. Under Windows it was easy easy easy. It seems to be an issue with pairing and Internet Tethering being off and turned on without the iPhone being restarted and how Ubuntu handles the pairing over this transition.

Most notable issue is that Network Manager will just fail to connect to the bluetooth access point immediately. If you install blueman, a great bluetooth manager, you will get the message “Connection refused (111)” or something similar which is a little more helpful, but not quite. To fix this, follow these steps.

1. Turn on tethering, on your iPhone click Settings > General > Network and turn on Internet Tethering. Tethering seems to be turned off by default on the iPhone.
2. Make sure that you delete all pairing with your iPhone in the bluetooth-manager (right click and go to preferences)
3. In your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Bluetooth, slide the computer paired connection, to the left and “Forget this Device”
4. Hold down the power button and restart your iPhone
5. In Ubuntu, right click bluetooth-manager and go to Preferences
6. Set your friendly name and then click Set up new Device…
7. On your iPhone enter the passcode on your laptop
8. Success on pairing!
9. On the computer make sure to check the option to use this as a network connection.
10. Test: Turn off your Wifi on the computer, and click the Network Manager icon, you should see 23:AF:45:BE:12:FA PANU or something similar. Click to connect.

Important notes:

Wifi Issues

Bluetooth does not seem to work well with Wii connections that are active. I tend to get my bluetooth connections dropping out or just plain will not connect. So make sure if you are having problems at all, turn Wifi to remove one more variable from problem.

Cellular Provider

I am with Telus Mobility and they offer the ability to tether on all their smartphone/data plans.