Comment 0 for bug 1264863

I successively upgraded from 12.04 LTS to 12.10 to 13.04 to 13.10 on my Asus EEE PC 1015PED, and upon booting, I saw "wifi disabled via hardware switch" in the network-manager toolbar menu. rfkill list returned

4: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: yes

and I wasn't able to use the hardware switch (Fn-F2 or the custom button) or sudo rfkill unblock all to enable it. I struggled for a long time with drivers, but eventually found that it was simply disabled in BIOS, and by enabling it there at boot time, it worked again!

I'm not sure if this is a bug in an installer, or if there should just be an advisory in network-manager or in the Network system prefs indicating ways to enable wifi, but I didn't want anyone else to have to struggle as much as I did.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: linux-image-3.11.0-14-generic 3.11.0-14.21
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-14.21-generic 3.11.7
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-14-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.2
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: warren 2306 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDmesg:
 [ 24.161461] init: anacron main process (1036) killed by TERM signal
 [ 51.494938] atl1c 0000:01:00.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X
 [ 51.509895] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready
 [ 51.515677] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready
 [ 64.223104] perf samples too long (2525 > 2500), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 50000
Date: Sun Dec 29 11:40:56 2013
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=f83d49e0-b9d7-4bb9-8a7c-eca9b7eb48c5
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-01-18 (711 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release i386 (20111012)
MachineType: ASUSTeK Computer INC. 1015PE
MarkForUpload: True
ProcFB:
 0 inteldrmfb
 1 VESA VGA
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-14-generic root=UUID=224d803b-2f44-4541-8acb-508041eb63f7 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.11.0-14-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.11.0-14-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.116
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to saucy on 2013-12-28 (1 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 06/12/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 0502
dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: 1015PE
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.board.version: x.xx
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 0x00000000
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.chassis.version: x.x
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr0502:bd06/12/2010:svnASUSTeKComputerINC.:pn1015PE:pvrx.x:rvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:rn1015PE:rvrx.xx:cvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:ct10:cvrx.x:
dmi.product.name: 1015PE
dmi.product.version: x.x
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.