Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

Envielox · 2013-06-22 12:53:14

On my laptop I have (as most of us do) a button for enabling wifi. By default its turned off after booting (does not preserve state), and I'd like it to be on.
Acceptable solutions include turning it on after startup by software, making wifi ignore state of rfkill (is this even possible?) or completely removing it from system.
Could you help me do any of this things ?

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-22 12:59:29

rfkill comes with two services, one to turn things on and one to turn things off... You should probably tell a bit mroe about your hardwre though becase some machines really have a physical switch that shuts down all functionality to the wireless card, while some )like mine) is a button that does a soft block. Rfkill can handle soft blocks but most of the time, hard blocks are beyond its control. So it is a soft block that you are experiencing, yes?

Envielox · 2013-06-22 13:02:15

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that detail, it is of course hard block, and of course rfkill can do nothing about it.

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-22 13:08:28

More details... hardware? Brand? The initial state of my bluetooth and wireless are handled by the thinkpad_acpi module. So I can switcheroo things by chaning module loading options. But my card is also only soft blocked by the wiki button, so this may be different for you.

Envielox · 2013-06-22 13:16:37

It is Acer TravelMate800.
How can i check if there is module responsible for that?

Trilby · 2013-06-22 13:48:06

Have you checked bios settings (for 'hard' blocks)?

Envielox · 2013-06-22 13:50:59

Bios seems to be very minimalist: date&time, boot, supervisor password and that's it, no hard blocks or anything like it.

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-22 18:40:10

There is an acer-wmi module that is similar to the thinkpad_acpi module I think. Not sure what functionality it provdes specifically, but I have doubts about its ability to change the hard block status of a particular piece of hardware... actually any module for that matter. To me that seems more along the lines of a bios or acpi issue.

Envielox · 2013-06-22 20:16:43

If i can't change the state, could I force the card to ignore the switch ? or remove it from system altogether ?

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-22 23:19:50

I wouldn't unless there is some kind of option in the bios, but it doesn't sound like there is. Have you tried resetting the bios to defaults? Maybe that will help. Otherwise, maybe there is a bios update that might help.

I really honestly can't see the operating system having an effect on this. The operating system only has the ability to do a soft(ware) block on the device.

David Batson · 2013-06-23 02:00:27

Don't know if this is any help or not...

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … bug/405152

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-23 02:27:54

From that bug report in David Batson's post, users seemed to indcate that blacklisting acer_wmi made it revert back to not being blocked. Can you give that a try? I am not saying that you need to use your computer this way forever, but just to do it as a diagnotic step to try to narrow down the cause. If that is indeed what is causing it, you should probably report the behavior to the acer_wmi folks (whereever they may be).

Arch Linux

#1 2013-06-22 12:53:14

Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#2 2013-06-22 12:59:29

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#3 2013-06-22 13:02:15

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#4 2013-06-22 13:08:28

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#5 2013-06-22 13:16:37

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#6 2013-06-22 13:48:06

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#7 2013-06-22 13:50:59

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#8 2013-06-22 18:40:10

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#9 2013-06-22 20:16:43

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#10 2013-06-22 23:19:50

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#11 2013-06-23 02:00:27

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

#12 2013-06-23 02:27:54

Re: Disable Wi-Fi hardware switch

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