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Sony Ericsson Z520a and Fedore Core 4
The following are some general steps I took to get my Sony Ericsson working with Fedora Core 4. Hopefully it will give you a feel for how well the phone is supported in case your in the market for a new phone. Maybe it will also help you getting it working after you buy it as well.
I'm pretty happy with this phone. It has a very good feature set for its price range. It also interacts the best with Linux of any phone I've owned to date. I think most of this is related to Bluetooth having such well documented standards. Probably any new Bluetooth phone will have similar behavior.
UPDATE: I'm not sure that I would recommend this phone any more for more advanced users, or Sony Ericsson phones in general. The main grip I have is with backup ability. I've had several common issues with this phone thats required me to wipe the memory a couple of times. That part didn't bother me but I had some paid-for Java games/applications and they got lost during this. The Sony Ericsson PC Suite (windows based application) has no way to backup anything under the "Application" or "Games" directories so its your loss during this time. These directories are also hidden from Linux programs. Also, Cingular has purposely turned off a lot of Java features for unsigned applications. That means most home brew applications can't do much.
You can contact me at chris at cnpbagwell dot com if you would like additional information.
Configuring Fedora Core's Bluetooth Support.
I have an IRDA dongle around somewhere that I got working with another phone. I probably could have communicated with the phone using that but I wanted to play around with bluetooth. So I found a sale on a D-Link DBT-120 USB Bluetooth dongle. Amazon.com had a specific customer review that mentioned it worked with Linux out of the box and so I bought it to prevent unneeded headaches.
I did have a few initial problems getting bluetooth working but this would have all been prevented if I simple ran yum update first. It was kinda working before this but the driver seemed to lock up and stop communicating randomly.
One thing I did along the way was modify /etc/bluetooth/hcid. I commented out dbus_pin_helper; by putting a # in front of the line to prevent hcid from crashing. This issue is being tracked by Redhat's Bugzilla 160676.
Next, I enabled the bluetooth service. I've been upgrading my main box for years and so I'm not sure if Fedora Core 4 enables bluetooth support by default. It wasn't enabled on my box so I launched "Desktop->System Settings->Server Settings->Services" and placed a checkmark by bluetooth. At the least, you will need to restart the deamon (which can be done from that same program) to make sure the above config file change takes effect.
And last, I installed the Gnome Bluetooth programs. This contains some useful stuff that I'll mention later.
yum install gnome-bluetooth
Testing Communications.
Now its time to see if things are working. To be safe, I verified bluetooth was enabled on my phone. This is under the "Settings" menu on the phone and then use the left arrow to go to the "Connectivity" screen. Bluetooth is the first option and "Turn on" is the first suboption (if it says "Turn off" then that means its actually on).
You might wish to verify the HCI device was configured. You should run hciconfig and see output similar to the following. If not then something is probably not invoking the bluetooth service scripts.
# /usr/sbin/hciconfig
hci0: Type: USB
BD Address: 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx ACL MTU: 192:8 SCO MTU: 64:8
UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN
RX bytes:35405 acl:233 sco:0 events:138 errors:0
TX bytes:1987 acl:82 sco:0 commands:30 errors:0
Now its time to see if Linux can see your phone.
# /usr/bin/hcitool scan
Scanning ...
00:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy Z520a
Smooth sailing so far. Now try pinging it. You have to specify the MAC address found during the scan. Hit control-C after its ran a while to abort.
# l2ping 00:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy 20 bytes from 00:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy id 0 time 44.46ms 20 bytes from 00:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy id 1 time 40.97ms 20 bytes from 00:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy id 2 time 34.57ms 20 bytes from 00:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy id 3 time 39.75ms 4 sent, 4 received, 0% loss
Pairing the device
Now that we proved communications are working good, its time to "pair" the phone with your desktop. To do that, go back into the "Settings" menu and left arrow to the "Connectivity" screen. Select "Bluetooth" option and then "My Devices" suboption.
The next screen will show you a "New Device" option and also list any other bluetooth devices you've previously paired. Select "New Device" and it will search for your desktop. Hopefully, you'll see a device with your desktop's hostname. Select it and enter a number passcode (1234 will work fine). Assuming your Gnome desktop is working fine, you'll get a popup box requesting the same passcode. Enter that and now the phone is paired with your desktop.
Cool! Someone has already integrated parts of bluetooth into the Gnome desktop!
Supported Services.
The following command can be used to see what services the phone supports:
# sdptool browse 00:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy
Browsing 00:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy ...
Service Description: Sony Ericsson Z520
Service RecHandle: 0x10000
Service Class ID List:
"PnP Information" (0x1200)
Service Name: Dial-up Networking
Service RecHandle: 0x10001
Service Class ID List:
"Dialup Networking" (0x1103)
"Generic Networking" (0x1201)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 1
Profile Descriptor List:
"Dialup Networking" (0x1103)
Version: 0x0100
Service Name: Serial Port
Service RecHandle: 0x10002
Service Class ID List:
"Serial Port" (0x1101)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 2
Service Name: HF Voice Gateway
Service RecHandle: 0x10003
Service Class ID List:
"Handfree Audio Gateway" (0x111f)
"Generic Audio" (0x1203)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 3
Profile Descriptor List:
"Handsfree" (0x111e)
Version: 0x0101
Service Name: HS Voice Gateway
Service RecHandle: 0x10004
Service Class ID List:
"Headset Audio Gateway" (0x1112)
"Generic Audio" (0x1203)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 4
Profile Descriptor List:
"Headset" (0x1108)
Version: 0x0100
Service Name: OBEX Object Push
Service RecHandle: 0x10005
Service Class ID List:
"OBEX Object Push" (0x1105)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 5
"OBEX" (0x0008)
Profile Descriptor List:
"OBEX Object Push" (0x1105)
Version: 0x0100
Service Name: OBEX File Transfer
Service RecHandle: 0x10006
Service Class ID List:
"OBEX File Transfer" (0x1106)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 6
"OBEX" (0x0008)
Profile Descriptor List:
"OBEX File Transfer" (0x1106)
Version: 0x0100
Service Name: OBEX SyncML Client
Service RecHandle: 0x10007
Service Class ID List:
"Error: This is UUID-128" (0x00001111-0000-0000-0000-000222000000)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 7
"OBEX" (0x0008)
Service Name: OBEX IrMC Sync Server
Service RecHandle: 0x10008
Service Class ID List:
"IrMC Sync" (0x1104)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 8
"OBEX" (0x0008)
Profile Descriptor List:
"IrMC Sync" (0x1104)
Version: 0x0100
Service Name: Mouse & Keyboard
Service Description: Remote Control
Service Provider: Sony Ericsson
Service RecHandle: 0x10009
Service Class ID List:
"Human Interface Device" (0x1124)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
PSM: 17
"HIDP" (0x0011)
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x656e
encoding: 0x6a
base_offset: 0x100
Profile Descriptor List:
"Human Interface Device" (0x1124)
Version: 0x0100
OBEX Push
I verifid that I could transfer pictures from the phone to my computer. I ran /usr/bin/gnome-obex-server and then while viewing an image on the phone I selected "Send->Via Bluetooth". The picture was transfered to my home directory. If you like, you can select System->Preferences->More Preferences->Sessions and add gnome-obex-server to the Startup Programs list so that you can always recieve files from the phone.
TODO: While viewing an image on the Z520a, there is an option called "More->Remote Screen". What is a remote screen? Selecting it brings up a list of bluetooth connections but I get a "Connection failed." message when I select one.
I verified that I could transfer pictures to the phone from my computer. I ran /usr/bin/gnome-obex-send filename. A window popped up asking which bluetooth device to send it to and then it was sent. I only tested with a picture but your supposed to be able to send vCards or vCalendar type files and they will automatically be deposited into your Contacts and Appointments.
You can also use Nuatilus to send a file. You can right-click on a file and select "Send to...". From the next pop-up, select "Send as: Bluetooch (OBEX)".
OBEX File Transfer.
TODO: I should really download and install ObexFTP from the OpenOBEX project. This program appears to allow filesystem browsing as well as automating complete backups of your files.
I have not verified if this feature works yet.
OBEX SyncML Client
OpenSync is working on a SyncML plugin that works over OBEX. I think initial support is available if you download the source code from SVN instead of the official released version. Its being developed on a Nokia phone so its probably going to have a few issues with the Z520a. I haven't tested this yet.
TODO: SyncML over HTTP probably works and OpenSync does support that. Initial attempts to compile it show that you need a patched version of libsoup. Since that library already comes with Fedora and some apps rely on the current version, its not very easy to work around. I'll probably hold off on testing that until the upstream version makes it into Fedora.
Serial Port
TODO: Not tested yet. I'm assuming this gives you access to the modem so that you can use the dozen of linux applications that use AT commands to communicate with the phone.
Dial-up Networking
TODO: Not tested yet. I don't normally need computer internet access via my phone so its not a high priority.
Watching Videos
I have been able to convert video's using ffmpeg to MPEG-4 video and downloaded to the phone. The quality is pretty bad; especially compared to a Video iPod. But it was a fun experiment and now I have a 4 meg 15 minute cartoon on my phone for my son to watch.
I used the following command to create a working video using two passes to improve quality and reduce the size further. You'll need to find direction on installing ffmpeg with appropriate libraries to get mpeg4 support.
ffmpeg -i video.mpg -s qcif -r 15 -b 64 -vcodec mpeg4 -ac 1 -ar 8000 -ab 12 \
-acodec aac -pass 1 -passlog ffmpeg_log video.3gp
ffmpeg -i video.mpg -s qcif -r 15 -b 64 -vcodec mpeg4 -ac 1 -ar 8000 -ab 12 \
-acodec aac -pass 2 -passlog ffmpeg_log video.3gp
Sony Ericsson gives guidelines of video resolutions for their phones. I've boiled it down to 176x144 (QCIF) 15 fps video at a bitrate of 64Kbps. Audio should be 8Khz mono 12Kbps. The file format should be 3gp (a variation of Quicktime I am told). I went for high end rates on video and low end specs for audio. We are used to crappy sound on a phone but crappy video is a little harder to put up with.
The screen can only display 128x96 resolution and so you can use SQCIF to save some space. I found a slightly less blocky picture though when using the higher resolution and only a couple of Kbytes difference in file size.
Sony Ericson suggests a video bit rate between 32Kbps and 64Kbps. I chose 64 because its only 6.42 meg per 15-minutes vs. 3.82 meg at 32Kbps. I can still record a 30 minute show at 64Kbps and fit within the 16 megs on the phone.
Once you have a video in 3gp format, just upload it with bluetooth and the phone will place the video in your "My Videos" folder.