I just replaced my Intel N100 based system with AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS system, bluetooth looks like it is working but not for my Xbox Controller. I am able to connect my Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse with no issues. But Xbox Controller won't connect, it does show up on the list though. As soon as I click the 'Xbox Controller - Not Set Up' to pair, it won't pair. I double click it and try to manually pair but it won't work. Not sure what is going on. This Xbox Controller was paired easily on N100 that I replaced.
Also, when I was installing Steam on Zorin, I saw a brief pop-up warning about something steam-devices" notifying that 'your system might not have the necessary packages to fully support all types of input devices' I clicked it hoping Steam installation would take care of it but now I am having this problem. I uninstalled the Steam, and reinstall it hoping to capture the screenshot of that warning message but this time it didn't appear. I tried purging and reinstalling BlueZ as someone suggested in the forum here but that didn't work either. So I search 'steam-devices' keyword on "Software" and installed the first result that showed up, it got installed but then none of my other bluetooth keyboard and mouse worked, so I uninstalled he 'steam-devices' and I am back to square one. Keyboard and mouse are working, Xbox shows up on the list when searched but won't pair.
Please help! I don't want to spend my weekend trying to figure just this one thing.
I used 'sudo apt install steam-devices' command, it installed some packages and once done, I tried to connect the xbox controller, this time it connected for about 4 secs I was happy to see it connected but then it immediately disconnected itself. Now it won't even connect for 4 secs.
I installed steam using flatpak from Software? Let me uninstall it from there, I will follow your direction and try to install it from the command line
Installed steam from command line but the same issue still persists. I installed Blueman Bluetooth manager, there the app is forcing bluetooth to connect with devices automatically but this is causing the app to show me the constant xbox controller connect and disconnect pop-ups.
Just tried my external Asus USB BT adapter and once again it worked flawlessly. Not sure why Zorin has issues with built-in bluetooth chip. I am going to try another distro tomorrow if the issue persists there as well. This is very frustrating experience.
You could try Solus with Plasma/KDE to test it up against. Solus is a rolling distro, it may not be as rock stable, but you get the latest apps and libs, so you can test your controller.
Okay, so I spent sometime testing another distro – specifically Linux Mint. The installation was pretty quick, about 30-40 minutes from start to finish. Once I got it up and running, I tested my Bluetooth Xbox controller, and guess what? The same symptoms followed me there too. Plus, Linux Mint didn’t have a built-in Night Mode like Zorin does. I mean, they sort of had it, but it required jumping through way too many hoops to enable what should be a basic feature on every system.
My main goal was to see if my Xbox controller would connect properly in Linux Mint’s Bluetooth settings, but nope – the same connect-and-disconnect issues were there. So, I quickly uninstalled Linux Mint and came back to Zorin OS. It didn’t take long to realize this probably wasn’t Linux’s fault, because I was confident other distros would’ve had shown the same problem.
Then something clicked. I plugged my Xbox controller into my Xbox Series X console, checked for a firmware update, and—surprise—there was one. I updated the controller’s firmware, crossed my fingers, and came back to Zorin. With about 1% hope left, I tried connecting my Xbox controller via Bluetooth, and… VOILA! It worked! No more connect-and-disconnect nonsense.
I’m posting this in case someone else ends up in the same predicament. Turns out, the culprit wasn’t Linux at all—it was outdated hardware firmware! I tested the controller in Steam games, played for a while, and everything worked perfectly. No disconnects, no issues. I still can’t believe the hardware firmware was the problem all along.
