Re: "Wireless is disabled" message

["Thomas O'Donoghue" <tomjodonoghue googlemail com>]

No, I never suspend or hibernate my computer (it doesn't work: another problem to fix later!).

To summarise: My computer acknowledges the existence of the wireless cards, but it won't let me connect to the internet via wireless (see pic in this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1151646). When my laptop arrived with windows on, the external (belkin) wireless card picked up the internet. The intel wireless card doesn't work.

The person in the linked conversation had exactly the same problem, and the solution he arrived at in the thread he started in Fedora Forums was:

"After not getting answers in this forum i inquired at the
NetworkManager mailing list, and got the above information. I was told
that NetworkManager code "honors" and checks the HAL killswitch, with
no user option to make it NOT honor it (software author's decision).

however, the author(s) were kind enough to share a quick hack of the
source code to disable the honoring of the killswitch, which worked
like a charm, making NetworkManager detect and control my removable
WiFi card."

If it helps, I'm using Linux Mint. The first time I plugged in the wireless card it acknowledged it and set up the drivers for it, which is why I think it's Network Manager which believes the wireless kill switch to be "off" when it is in fact hooked up to a defective wireless device. I did read somewhere that Network Manager honours the kill switch, and uses it for ALL network devices rather than allowing control of individual devices. I think there's a clear argument that the downstream user should be able to enable and disable individual devices, in the event they have a problem like mine.

Regards,

Tom

2009/5/11 Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>

On Mon, 2009-05-11 at 14:46 +0900, Thomas O'Donoghue wrote:
> I found out about this list through the forum mentioned in the
> following thread:
>
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2008-September/msg00256.html
>
> and appear to have the same problem. The person appealed to you guys
> and seemed to get a fix: I looked through the messages, but was unable
> to deduce what that fix was. I have the same problem (my internal
> Intel wireless card doesn't work, so I think the computer
> automatically assumes that the wireless switch is set to "off"). I'm
> using an external card, but cannot enable wireless to use it.

Does this happen when you return from suspend/hibernate?  If so, please
see:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=477964

Dan