Bug 855503 - Wireless cannot be enabled if disabled in bios
Summary: Wireless cannot be enabled if disabled in bios
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: NetworkManager
Version: 17
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Dan Williams
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-09-08 09:21 UTC by tim
Modified: 2013-07-31 23:37 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-07-31 23:37:55 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Bugzilla 586808 0 low CLOSED Wireless cannot be enabled if it is not enabled at boot time. 2021-02-22 00:41:40 UTC

Description tim 2012-09-08 09:21:48 UTC
Description of problem:
Perhaps not so much a bug as a change request. Depends on how one would look at it. I see it a user friendlyness bug :)
This may also be related to bug 586808, which is about a laptop with wlan hardware switch (this eeePC 1000H doesn't have one, but it might be usefull to keep this feature for other hardware in mind)

After I disabled wireless from the networkmanager applet, the menu doesn't display the option to enable it anymore. A search on internet didn't give much results. I tried putting something like WIRELESS=yes or ENABLE_WIRELESS=yes in /etc/sysconfig/network, but that didn't make a difference. It wasn't until I just randomly tried the output of dmesg that I saw a hint. It said something about wlan being disabled in BIOS although the device was present. Next line said something along the lines of not using the device because it was probably inapropriate for this hardware.. This confuses me, as it seems that disabling wireless from the network manager applet changes this bios setting. Now I don't mind that this setting is changed in BIOS, as long as I'd be able to change it back or at least be *told* that is was changing my BIOS settings..

By the way: something much like this happens when enabling flight mode from gnome-control-center. Flight mode can not be disabled afterwards.. Although, please note that I use XFCE.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
0.9.4.0

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Make sure wireless is enabled in bios.
2. Disable wireless using the network manager applet.
3. Notice the option to enable wireless is gone.
4. Reboot, enable wireless in bios.
5. Notice the option to enable wireless is now back (though unchecked, which is fine to me)
6. Enable wireless using the networkmanager applet.
7. Open the gnome-control-center.
8. Go to network settings.
9. Enable flight mode.
10. Notice the option to disable flight mode is not there.
11. Reboot, enable wireless in bios.
  
Actual results:
Confusing functionality

Expected results:
Better integration between the parts involved so that the user gets more understandible behaviour.

Additional info:
I have not tested the reproducability on other environments than xfce.

Comment 1 Mads Kiilerich 2012-10-19 15:55:26 UTC
Bug 735516 seems similar. What you describe works fine with NM on other kinds of hardware. I guess the problem is problems with the hardware support in the kernel or other low level components.

Comment 2 Fedora End Of Life 2013-07-03 22:02:22 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 17 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 17. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 
'version' of '17'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 17's end of life.

Bug Reporter:  Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that 
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Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
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Comment 3 Fedora End Of Life 2013-07-31 23:37:59 UTC
Fedora 17 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2013-07-30. Fedora 17 is 
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further 
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of 
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.


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