"Enable Wireless" is gray on ubuntu 11.10 (Dell Vostro 1520)

[Peng Yu]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:46 AM, James Tappin <sjt at star.sr.bham.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:10:18 -0600
> Peng Yu <pengyu.ut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> PY> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 10:09 AM, Mark Paskal <markpaskal at gmail.com>
> PY> wrote:
> PY> > If it doesn't work after a restart of the machine, you should open
> PY> > System Settings via the cog menu on the top right and select
> PY> > 'Additional Drivers.' Assuming we have similar dells you should
> PY> > have an option in there for the broadcom-sta driver, which you can
> PY> > select and click 'Activate.'
> PY>
> PY> It was already enabled.
> PY>
> PY> The problem must be due to some other factors.
> PY>
>
> It sounds like the card is hard blocked. To check this, run:
> rfkill list
>
> The Hard blocked state ought to be toggled by the hardware switch (or
> Fn-<key> combination). I've not seen this fail in *buntu, but I do see
> the same issue with an Intel wifi card when running Pardus.
> Unfortunately I don't know of a way to fix the problem if the switch
> doesn't do the job. (Possibly with Broadcom you need to change to the
> legacy driver or from it).

Here is the output before and after hard block of the wireless by the
switch on the laptop. So the hardware switch is on when it is gray.
This must have been caused by other problems.

pengy at hydrogen:~$ rfkill list
0: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
2: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: yes
3: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no



pengy at hydrogen:~$ rfkill list
0: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes
2: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: yes
3: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no



-- 
Regards,
Peng