BudsLink is a Linux app giving you more control over Bluetooth earbuds from the likes of Apple, Sony, Samsung and Nothing – battery levels, active noise cancellation (ANC) and more, all without needing to use a mobile app.
Most Bluetooth audio devices ‘just work’ on Ubuntu and other Linux distributions for listening to audio, but that’s about it. Pair AirPods or Galaxy Buds with your desktop and you’ll find you can’t adjust all of the on-device features you paid for.
BudsLink is a GTK4/libadwaita app which can. It lets you control earbud features on your Linux desktop, no need to fire up an Android or iOS app. It communicates directly with supported devices over L2CAP and RFCOMM sockets.
Those are included in BlueZ, the default Bluetooth audio stack used in Ubuntu.
Ostensibly similar to LibrePods, which I wrote about last year, BudsLink is more versatile, covers a broader range of hardware and offers desktop integration options.
Access advanced audio device features
The main UI, device overview and settings for AirPods Pro
The majority of wearable Bluetooth audio devices have batteries, so knowing how much battery they have is important. BudsLink’s key lure is displaying per earbud battery levels and charging case battery reporting (on devices that report it).
It should be obvious, but BudsLink is not endorsed or supported by any of the companies whose devices it supports.
It also lets you – device dependent – enable Active Noise Cancellation and Ambient Sound modes, DSEE upscaling and Conversation Awareness (with optional automatic volume reduction when you start speaking).
Media pause and resume via in-ear detection or gestures and button configuration are in there too, and you can define equaliser presets if your device supports those.
Which devices does it work with?
Each device offers different settings
Supported hardware currently covers most Apple AirPods and Beats models, a slew of Sony audio wearables, Samsung Galaxy Buds and Nothing/CMF earbuds and headphones.
It is, however, active and adding support for new devices – Sony WH-XB900N added recently, and support for Pixel Buds is coming in the next release.
Panel integration, without the app
You don’t need the app either
Here’s where BudsLink gets really neat. It can run as a D-Bus service, exposing device info to your system which a set of companion desktop integrations can hook in to.
A GNOME Shell extension, a KDE Plasma applet (and desktop widget) and a Cinnamon applet are available through a separate BudsLink Companion. Right now, that package is beta and you need to download it from GitHub and run a script.
But it’s worth it.
Add-ons and applets are nice but not required as BudsLink (the app) works by itself. But if you’d rather enable ANC from your taskbar or desktop panel without opening the main app, they’re what makes using this tool different to alternatives.
Install BudsLink on Ubuntu
BudsLink is is free, open-source software available on Flathub.
To install it on Ubuntu you’ll need Flatpak installed and the Flathub repo enabled first, then you open your terminal and run:
flatpak install flathub io.github.maniacx.BudsLink
Alternatively, if you’re on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and you like a GUI, install Bazaar from the repos. It lets you browse, install, manage and update Flatpaks you install from Flathub. A quick sudo apt install bazaar will get the desktop app.
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