I have what I believe is the same problem on a HP Pavillion dm1-4030sa and a fresh install of ubuntu 11.10 and a Broadcom 4313GN wireless adapter. I don't have a hardware switch as such - but the f11key can act as a wireless communication toggler. There is a light on it that is supposed to turn from orange to white when wireless communication is activated. (That's how this worked when I originally booted this up under Windows.) However under ubuntu it is always orange, even though it does seem to toggle all wireless communication as expected.
The problem for me is that when I start the laptop bluetooth shows as being turned on and I want to turn it off. No point it eating the battery. However, when I do so, via the bluetooth status indicator dropdown menu my wireless connection is also disabled. Furthermore, if I go to the networking status indicator dropdown menu the "Enable wireless" menu item is unchecked (as you might expect), but it is impossible to re-enable it by selecting it. All wireless communication has becomes blocked - or airplane mode as the original poster says. Even selecting to turn on bluetooth again via the dropdown doesn't work. The only solution I have found to reenable wireless networking is to select Preferences from the bluetooth dropdown and slide the bluetooth toggle from off to on - which also switches on bluetooth. Confusingly though, even when bluetooth is displayed as On in the drop down menu of the status indicator it displays as being disabled in the preferences dialog! As original poster says, Ubuntu has got really confused about bluetooth and wireless. Any help that you anyone could provide sorting this out would be gratefully received. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to network-manager-applet in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/909938 Title: Ubuntu has confused my bluetooth feature with my wireless card Status in “network-manager-applet” package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Bug description: I am running ubuntu 11.10. I have been using ubuntu since 9.04. I have 11.10 installed on a Dell Inspiron switch. The OS seams to have confused bluetooth and wireless. When I turn off bluetooth all wireless activity immediately ceases. When I attempt to access wireless networks through the wireless card every option is grey and I am unable to access it. It acknowledges the pressence of the card itself, identifys it, gives me its MAC address and even the type of card it is but I cannot turn the wireless function on, search for wireless networks, or connect to one via anything but the bluetooth function. It also seems to be in perminent airplaine mode. I have turned airplaine mode off several times and yet it still will not allow me access to my wireless functions. When I exit the network settings folder airplaine mode is immediately re-enstated and is "on" again when I open it back up. I have made several attempts to rectify this and had absolutely no luck. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager-applet/+bug/909938/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
