I've done nothing special to use Bluetooth headphones with my Linux computers (a Dell laptop, a Lenovo workstation and a Lenovo laptop, running either Fedora or Ubuntu) and I use a variety of them regularly:

- Samsung Galaxy Buds Live that came with my last smartphone

- Some fancy Jabra-brand headset we get from work

- My wife's Sennheiser Momentum Wireless when I don't bring my own

- Not headphones per-se, but in the office meeting rooms we have Logitech desk mics I connect to all the time

No config or installing additional software needed beyond pairing.

Based on my own samples the above makes me suspect "AirPods don't comply well with standards" or something along those lines.

Does your mic work in the headphones?

These were Sony XM3 in particular. After installing a bunch of software through the CLI I got them to play sound.

But the mic never worked. I saw similar stories online of everyone just saying "stick with wired mics".

Yep, mic works for me. My main mic is actually wired, too (a RODE NT-USB), but just for audio quality reasons. I use the Galaxy Buds Live for meetings when I'm in the living room because my wife needs our office room for something, and I use the Logitech desk mics in the office, and those work. I can't remember about the Jabra off-hand.

Thanks I'll check those Galaxy Buds out.

I have Airpods as well as Jabra Elite 65t, Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro, and various Plantronics. The Apple are the only ones that are wonky. There seems to be some other protocol for them that needs to be enabled, but I didn't bother and just switched to the Galaxy Buds Pro (the Jabras are excellent as well.)

The very first DDG result for "airpods linux bluetooth" is this one: https://askubuntu.com/questions/922860/pairing-apple-airpods...

Does the mic work in any of these? I found it to be impossible

Re: airpods linux bluetooth -- CLI commands to get bluetooth headphones just to play sound is not viable for Linux to take off.

You have to change the profile from "headphones" (high quality audio) to "headset" to have a microphone. It's a matter of a few clicks.

I'm just pointing out that Apple was doing something different. As far as that being not viable for Linux to take off... well, I respect your opinion.

The instructions you linked state that to connect Airpods one needs to:

Set ControllerMode = bredr or ControllerMode = dual by editing /etc/bluetooth/main.conf file using sudo nano /etc/bluetooth/main.conf command (or another text editor of your choice)

sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart

Try to pair again.

Blame manufacturers.