Bluetooth USB dongle with Linux; which ones work?

[Bob Chiodini]

Rob wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have a desktop PC without a build-in bluetooth device. Thus I need to
> buy a USB dongle for exchanging data over bluetooth with my mobile
> phone. Most (low-cost) USB dongles that I find on the web have the
> specifications for the OS to be some flavor of Windows.
>
> Hence, I'm suspicious whether I have to be very careful which USB
> dongle to buy; or is bluetooth over USB nowadays at a level that pretty
> much every dongle is supported in Linux?
>
> By the way, I'm about to upgrade to Fedora 7; would that make it
> easier to use such devices?
>
> This is my first time to do something with bluetooth, so I appreciate
> your comments, explanations and/or advice.
>
> Thanks,
> Rob.
Rob,

I picked one up a Walmart, $15-$18.  It's branded as IOGEAR (P/N 
GBU221).  It shows up as a Broadcom with a device ID of 2101. 

It works fine interfacing to my cell phone.  The gnome bluetooth 
interface takes a little getting used to, but so be it, it works.

Bob...