Re: Wireless disabled by hardware

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Sat, 2012-05-12 at 18:56 -0300, Felipe Alcubillas wrote:
> I'm using ubuntu 10.10. I can't connect to wifi. I've tried everything
> (trust me, I REALLY read everything I could at forums and tried a
> thousand times) but I just can't solve this problem. How can I enable
> my wifi again?

If NM says this, then the kernel is reporting that an "airplane mode"
switch says wifi is off.  What does 'rfkill list' say?  What does
'lsmod' say?  What kind of laptop do you  have?

If you find an airplane mode/rfkill switch somewhere on your laptop, try
toggling it.  Sometimes they are actual slider switches, sometimes they
are "soft keys" like Fn+F5.  On my HP 2530p it's a touch-sensitive
button at the top of the keyboard.  On my Dell D430 it's a slider switch
on the right side of the laptop.  On Thinkpads it's typically Fn+F5.

Also, be sure to check your BIOS; Dell machines often have the ability
to disable the built-in wifi slot from BIOS, and I'm not sure how that
shows up to the kernel.

Second, if you replaced the wifi card that came in your laptop with a
different card, sometimes the laptop has hardwired rfkill functionality
that the new card simply doesn't know how to handle and disables itself.
That's more the case with WWAN cards though.

Dan