I have recently installed Linux (Lubuntu 15.10) on a computer that had running Windows Vista before and I'm stuck with enabling the wifi.
Two years ago, while still running Windows, the internal wifi card stopped working. I bought a USB wifi dongle to replace it and it worked fine.
On Lubuntu, the network manager shows both the internal wifi card (Ralink Corp. RT2790) and the dongle (Realtek 802.11n WLAN Adapter) as deactived. For both the message is "Wifi is disabled by hardware switch". The wifi dongle has no hardware switch. The internal card has a FN key combination. But it does not work and, as I said above, I was not able to activate it on Windows either.
I tested the dongle on another Linux computer (Xubuntu 15.10) and it worked fine (no blocking, was detected directly). Do you have any idea how I could activate the dongle? Or how I could activate the internal card, if that is easier to solve.
Running "rfkill list all" gives me
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
which makes sense, because the dongle has no hard block feature.
ifconfig does not show the wireless (I'm currently connected via Ethernet):
enp0s4 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:e0:91:37:6a:8d
inet addr:192.168.0.13 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fd00:c47:3d3f:8cb2:a1ec:140e:7b80:e2ba/64 Scope:Global
inet6 addr: 2a02:810c:800:2cdc:a1ec:140e:7b80:e2ba/64 Scope:Global
inet6 addr: fe80::2e0:91ff:fe37:6a8d/64 Scope:Link
inet6 addr: fd00:c47:3d3f:8cb2:2e0:91ff:fe37:6a8d/64 Scope:Global
inet6 addr: 2a02:810c:800:2cdc:2e0:91ff:fe37:6a8d/64 Scope:Global
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:107179 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:61205 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:1 carrier:0
collisions:30 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:148550828 (148.5 MB) TX bytes:4626197 (4.6 MB)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:2894 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2894 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:239665 (239.6 KB) TX bytes:239665 (239.6 KB)
Running sudo lshw -C network gives:
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: 191 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
vendor: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]
physical id: 4
bus info: pci@0000:00:04.0
logical name: enp0s4
version: 02
serial: 00:e0:91:37:6a:8d
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 100Mbit/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=sis190 driverversion=1.4 duplex=full ip=192.168.0.13 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
resources: irq:19 memory:d8607000-d860707f ioport:1000(size=128)
*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
product: RT2790 Wireless 802.11n 1T/2R PCIe
vendor: Ralink corp.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
logical name: wlp3s0
version: 00
serial: 00:15:af:9e:0e:71
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=4.2.0-16-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
resources: irq:16 memory:d8300000-d830ffff
*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
physical id: 1
bus info: usb@1:5
logical name: wlx74da380a271c
serial: 74:da:38:0a:27:1c
capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8192cu driverversion=4.2.0-16-generic firmware=N/A link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
The lsusb of the dongle is
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 7392:7811 Edimax Technology Co., Ltd EW-7811Un 802.11n Wireless Adapter [Realtek RTL8188CUS]
I tried sudo rfkill unblock all and rfkill unblock 1, but that did not help.
Running sudo ifconfig wlx74da380a271c up lets the usb dongle appear in ifconfig, but does not change anything else:
wlx74da380a271c Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 74:da:38:0a:27:1c
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Any help would be much appreciated.