Re: howto ignore rfkill switch

[Brian Morrison <bdm fenrir org uk>]

Marc Herbert wrote:

>> 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.

It might be great if you actually have a hardware switch, a lot of
machines do not. My laptop uses Fn-F2 and that disables Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth simultaneously but not by cutting the power to them or by
toggling an enable line to the radios. It does it by some sort of
software mechanism.


> 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!".

Or "Damn! Why the hell can't I switch off my WiFi and leave my Bluetooth
active so I can use my mouse?"

-- 

Brian