Acer Aspire 4520 WiFi button

[Mike McMullin]

On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 12:22 +0100, Colin Brace wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> This past weekend I upgraded my Acer Aspire notebook to 8.10. For some 
> reason, I can't get the wireless working.
> 
> The 4520 has an Atheros wireless chipset. lspci:
> 
> 07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 
> 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
> 
> Following the release notes, I installed 
> “linux-backports-modules-2.6.27-7-generic” which I understand contains 
> the ath5k module that should support the AR242x chipset.

  I'm on an Aspire with that chipset and I scrapped the ath5k in favour
of the older mad-wifi which works like a champ after you get it set up.
I dl'ed the driver file from the mad-wifi site, unpacked it, and did the
make and make-install, the down side is that i need to redo those steps
at every kernel update, but my wifi works.

> However, I can't seem to switch the WiFi on. Pressing the WiFi button 
> has no effect; no LED is switched on or off. Googling the issue, I 
> encountered this post which alludes to the problem:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4172878&postcount=105
> 
> The writer suggests that it might be necessary to boot Windows (!) to 
> switch the wireless on. Unfortunately, I erased Vista when I bought the 
> machine.

  Is your wifi switch (software/hardware) turned on?

> FWIW, with my previous Aspire, of which the wireless worked flawless 
> under Ubuntu,  the WiFi interface was activated by default at boot time; 
> a bright orange LED indicated this.
> 
> Any one have any ideas for me?
> 
> TIA
> 
> -- 
>   Colin Brace
>   Amsterdam
>   http://lim.nl
> 
> 
> 
>