here's what I would like to achieve:

my MacBook at home is connected to internet over the WLAN router that is pretty far away and my N9 can't connect to that router from my room (bringing the router closer is not an option, nor changing WLAN settings, as router is of the landlord). I'd like to connect my N9 to Bluetooth PAN of my MacBook to be able to surf on N9 using MacBook's WLAN internet connection. Is there a way for MacBook to see N9 as Bt PAN device? I did similar things in the past with Windows laptops, would like to do with N9 the same.

I don't have a N9, but I've tethered my N900 to my MacBook via USB and the "PC Suite" mode, which creates the USB device files in /dev on the N900. My experience is that tethering and battery life are at odds, so in my mind USB tethering is generally more useful than Bluetooth.

Based on your description, it seems like you need the N9 to see the *MacBook* as a Bt PAN device. I'd recommend some reading on the MacBook's System Preferences and available Bluetooth profiles. I would also wager that your task will have similar steps as those who have solved this problem with the N900, so dig there also.

Good luck!

You're right - USB seems to be more reasonable, regarding already not so good battery life on n9 (due to some bugs hope to be solved in PR1.2).

but I'm not so sure about USB... upon connecting n9 to MacBook I get 3 options: mass storage, sync, and only charging... besides, I'm not really sure how to provide net connection over USB port from Mac side, 'cause in Sharing settings of Mac there are only 2 options: share Airport net connection to Ethernet, or to BT PAN...

Using a wire for this seems so... primitive. Tethering by bluetooth works fine with the DUN profile. I actually used it yesterday, when my (wired, heh) internet connection was down.

But PAN is more elegant than DUN. It simply has more features. What's more, it seems that Android/Google simply seems to refuse to add bluetooth DUN support in the "client" role; you need PAN to be able to use your mobile as internet access point for an Android tablet.

You can hate Google for it, and they often seem quite hardheaded, so I guess there will be little change there.

I haven't yet tried the DBUS-option to control PAN. But I wonder, would that even work on a stock, non-open-mode, kernel? Has anyone else had success with this on the N9/N950?

I'm not sure if You understood me - MacBook is wirelessly connected to internet, and would like to connect my N9 to the MacBook (using BT or USB) and use MacBook's connection to surf on my N9... tethering, but the other way - use MacBook as internet access point for N9...

Oh I did understand you; you want the N9 to leech from the internet connection provided by another device, your Mac in this case.

This post at FMO does contain some pointers. You'll need the PANU (client).

However, I've been trying without success so far. The D-Bus HOWTO is for OpenMoko. I don't know if that maps one-on-one to the N9. In fact, I don't even know what the $BTADAPTER variable exactly stands for. This does work: {pid} is the pid of bluetoothd (ps | grep bluetoothd).

But now what? According to the Maemo 5 bluez API this should get some result too:

What's interesting here is that the pid isn't needed? Not that it matters, with or without PID: method doesn't exist. Alas, I'm kinda stuck now . It would be helpful if someone knows if it even can be made to work using the D-Bus, or that we're on a dead end here.

In /etc/bluetooth/main.conf there's a line
But removing this line has no noticable effect after restarting bluetoothd or even rebooting. The D-bus queries yield the same results. Is the N9 simply lacking the required software for PAN?

So any further progress with this?
It sounds like a good idea if Wifi tethering really is unhealthy for the battery as some claim.

Big battery drainer isn't a issue, as I'd usually (not always) have it plugged into a A/C outlet or external battery.
But if it's literally bad for LT battery health because of high drain rate, then this becomes interesting.

I haven't done the N9 as a PANU client, but as an access point on Bluetooth. Not sure how it would work the other way around but I suspect your the Macbook has to act as a server.

I'd be interested in this where the N9 acts as BT AP/Router of sorts.
i.e. a "NAT'd" 3G connection to the net via BT to a BT client (e.g. my rMBP).