Re: howto ignore rfkill switch

[Marc Herbert <Marc Herbert gmail com>]

Dan Williams wrote :

> You've flipped the rfkill switch, thus you do not want to use wifi.

With all due respect, you are wrong.


> If you do actually want to use wifi, there are other, better mechanisms to
> just kill the card you don't want to use.

blacklisting does not qualify as "better". Besides blacklisting?


> rfkill is *not* the mechanism to disable a specific card completely.

Yes it is.

A hardware switch is great. It is so more intuitive than any software
interface, since it just looks like the good old ON/OFF button that
everybody understands since they were three years old. By making one
single button act on multiple unrelated devices you try to make the
machine too clever and leave the fundamental ON/OFF analogy behind.
This ON/OFF analogy is so fundamental that most users do not even
suspect it is an analogy! They simply think that the button is actually
hard-wired to the device. "Cool, a hardware button!  Finally something
simple and reliable to switch off all this complex and buggy software!".

In the latest Ubuntu "stable", ath5k reliably freezes my laptop; this
example could be the most common reason normal people use another
wireless interface.

To switch off my USB / PCMCIA interface, guess what: I simply use once
again its dead-simple, "hardware" interface: I just plug it out!

And sorry but I do not plan to explain to my grand-ma how to blacklist
drivers.


Cheers,

Marc

PS Marcel: I read you, and I am glad the kernel plans to push this UI
debate out of its scope.