I have an HP Compaq 6910p laptop that has a touch bar above the keyboard to toggle various things on and off, wireless being one of them. The first few times I booted antiX (8) it turned the wireless on by default and the button was lit. Now, when I boot antiX, it says the following in the onscreen output...

iwlagn: Radio disabled by HW RF Kill switch

Tapping the button to toggle does nothing and the light doesn't go on and off. Not sure why it stopped working all of a sudden? How can I go about fixing it? I currently can't get online in antiX because the wireless won't come on!

Do you know what chip is in it? The correct driver should use the light.

This is a post from a problem with Toggle on EEEpc using Fedora. The info may apply to your situation. I copied and Pasted a Text File just because I found the post interesting. If It doesn't apply to your situation. Sorry for wasting your time then.

I have the Eee PC 900, with a Atheros wireless. The driver is included in the kernel, so a kernel update shouldn't make it stop working.

When I last tried the wireless on/off switch, I had trouble turning it back on. There is a module called rfkill that controls this. To see the state of the module, use this command.
Code:

cat /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/state

You should get a reply of 0 or 1.
0 = wireless off
1 = wireless on

You can manually change the state of the rfkill module. To turn the wireless on, use this command.
Code:

echo 1 > /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/state

You should unload and reload the wireless modules after changing the rfkill state. I had to reboot before it would work again.

Because it was such a pain to get it to work again, I never shut it off again. If you use it during an airplane flight, you will need to turn it off. Just copy and save the commands that I gave you, so that you can turn it back on.

Good Luck

eriefisher wrote:Do you know what chip is in it? The correct driver should use the light.

Here is the output of lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 0c)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566MM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HBM (ICH8M-E) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M64-S [Mobility Radeon X2300]
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b9)
02:06.1 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b9)
02:06.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 03)
02:06.3 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 20)
02:06.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev ff)
10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)


Looks like it is the Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG. How can I get the correct driver? Also, it is working now, not sure why I haven't done anything except leave the laptop off all night!

Post lsmod and we will see if anything is getting loaded. I'm not sure which driver intel uses.

eriefisher wrote:Post lsmod and we will see if anything is getting loaded. I'm not sure which driver intel uses.

Here it is...

Module Size Used by
binfmt_misc 9224 1
ppdev 8452 0
lp 10116 0
ipv6 231556 18
acpi_cpufreq 8716 1
cpufreq_userspace 4996 0
cpufreq_powersave 3584 0
cpufreq_stats 5764 0
cpufreq_conservative 7688 0
cpufreq_ondemand 8204 1
freq_table 5248 3 acpi_cpufreq,cpufreq_stats,cpufreq_ondemand
fuse 46108 1
ndiswrapper 158620 0
dm_crypt 13188 0
dm_mod 46280 1 dm_crypt
ide_cs 11520 0
pata_pcmcia 12544 1
joydev 10304 0
irtty_sir 6400 0
sir_dev 11908 1 irtty_sir
snd_hda_intel 336784 0
arc4 3712 2
ecb 4480 2
crypto_blkcipher 15876 2 dm_crypt,ecb
snd_pcm_oss 34720 0
snd_mixer_oss 14208 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 58756 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy 4484 0
pcmcia 30380 2 ide_cs,pata_pcmcia
snd_seq_oss 26880 0
snd_seq_midi 7584 0
snd_rawmidi 18592 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 7552 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 41968 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer 18440 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 7564 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
iwlagn 77828 0
iwlcore 72644 1 iwlagn
rfkill 9240 2 iwlcore
snd 42660 9 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
rtc_cmos 10400 0
irda 91832 1 sir_dev
led_class 5380 1 iwlcore
rtc_core 14620 1 rtc_cmos
rtc_lib 4352 1 rtc_core
yenta_socket 22540 4
serio_raw 6660 0
crc_ccitt 3840 1 irda
rsrc_nonstatic 11136 1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core 29972 5 ide_cs,pata_pcmcia,pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
psmouse 34704 0
soundcore 7648 1 snd
mac80211 137244 2 iwlagn,iwlcore
parport_pc 24228 1
parport 29804 3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
snd_page_alloc 8584 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
cfg80211 22152 3 iwlagn,iwlcore,mac80211
video 18576 0
tpm_infineon 9512 0
container 5376 0
backlight 5636 1 video
tpm 13376 1 tpm_infineon
tpm_bios 7168 1 tpm
output 4480 1 video
wmi 7720 0
battery 8192 0
ac 5120 0
button 7952 0
intel_agp 24636 0
evdev 10144 7
sdhci_pci 8576 0
sdhci 15108 1 sdhci_pci
ohci1394 26544 0
ricoh_mmc 5504 0
mmc_core 39452 1 sdhci
e1000e 91180 0
uhci_hcd 20364 0
thermal 17436 0
processor 34860 4 acpi_cpufreq,thermal
fan 6276 0
thermal_sys 11944 4 video,thermal,processor,fan

Appreciate the help.

I found this bit of info:

Working PCI wireless cards on Debian lenny/sid x86_64 (kernel: 2.6.26-1-amd64) by eggman (3):
As it's common on Debian system, the firmware"firmware-iwlwifi" is not installed by default. Plus, there is a bug in the automatically installed package"acpi-support" that prevent the wifi to be used. uninstalling acpi-support solve this problem. For more info take a look at :
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=482349"
linktext was:"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=482349"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false

So I looked in synaptic for"firmware-iwlwifi" and found this:

This package contains the binary firmware for Intel Wireless 3945, 4965,
5100 and 5300 cards.

Contents:
* Intel Wireless 3945 firmware, version 15.28.1.6
* Intel Wireless 3945 firmware, version 15.32.2.9
* Intel Wireless 4965 firmware, version 228.57.1.21
* Intel Wireless 4965 firmware, version 228.57.2.23
* Intel Wireless 5000 firmware, version 5.4.A.11

Try and install it, sounds promising.

Ok, installed it and haven't had an issue yet (it's only been an hour). I will have to watch it the next few days and see if it happens. Another thing is the wireless toggle button in antiX blinks frequently. It almost seems like it is blinking for Internet traffic. However, in Windows XP the wireless toggle does not blink, it just stays lit (solid) when it's on and unlit when I turn it off. I would like it to act the same way in antiX. In other words, I don't want it to blink for network traffic. Any idea where to start looking?


Note: It blinks in Ubuntu as well, not sure why.