Why won't Ubuntu 11.10 wirelessly connect to my Lenovo B570

Question

I just bought this brand new lenovo B570 last week and the first thing I did was install Ubuntu 11.10 but whenI tried to connect it through a wireless connection it just didn't at all. How can this be solved? I really love Ubuntu and it would be a massive disappointment if this can be solved. Thanks!

Answer 1

I found the solution from: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1871781

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Solution for the Issue

The following commands will enables wireless till next boot

sudo service network-manager stop
sudo rmmod acer_wmi
sudo modprobe acer_wmi
sudo rfkill unblock all
sudo service network-manager start

After this step the status message in the Network Manager will be “Wireless is disabled”. Now Enable wireless from the Network Manager using the following commands

sudo rmmod -f acer_wmi

Wireless networks will be detected and connected. To make this change permanent use

sudo su
echo "blacklist acer_wmi" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
exit

Now if everything goes well you will have Wireless enabled on your Thinkpad. Thanks to David John for sending us the solution

and here's the link http://www.zyxware.com/articles/1694/wireless-disabled-by-hardware-switch-issue-on-the-thinkpad-z570-in-ubuntu-solution

Answer 2

I have the same laptop (b570) and had a difficult time. Hopefully you have dual boot with windows. In my case I had to blacklist acer-wmi in the document "/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf" (at the bottom type in "blacklist acer-wmi" without quotes) then reboot back into windows and turn on the wireless, reboot back into Ubuntu and it worked.

I had tried for days with just blacklisting, then messing with the hardware switch on the actual case, tried the fn key and most everything I could google with no luck. Then upon needing wireless booted into windows realized it was off there too, turned it on, back into Ubuntu 11.10 and fixed.