Can't get my wireless to work in Ubuntu 11.04

[DeadCow]

I have a laptop with an Atheros AR5007 802.11b/g WiFi Adapter.
When I boot into Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), I can't get my wireless adapter to turn on. Even if I click on the WiFi icon in the top left of the screen and "Enable Wireless", it still says my wireless adapter is turned off.

I know a friend who has this problem on his laptop, he is stumped as well.\

Any suggestions on what might fix this?

[PvtCupcakes]

Some laptops have a Function key that enables/disables the wifi. Try messing with that, or try the rfkill program.

[DeadCow]

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;33042789]Some laptops have a Function key that enables/disables the wifi. Try messing with that, or try the rfkill program.[/QUOTE]

Yeah mine has a button for that, I tried it.
What exactly do I do with rfkill?

[Boris-B]

run rfkill list and it will give you a list of devices and if they're on

then you can run rfkill unblock <dev number> or even rfkill unblock all

You should also post the results from

rfkill list

[P320]

try the madwifi drivers.

[PvtCupcakes]

[QUOTE=P320;33052250]try the madwifi drivers.[/QUOTE]

I think those are outdated. All the Atheros drivers should be built into the kernel with ath5k or ath9k.

[AlienCat]

If the rfkill stuff doesn't work you can try to start the wireless manually from the console, you can find instructions how to do it here:[url]http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/14/connect-to-a-wireless-network-via-command-line/[/url]

[P320]

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;33056059]I think those are outdated. All the Atheros drivers should be built into the kernel with ath5k or ath9k.[/QUOTE]

Shows how much I've been out of the loop. :v:

[DeadCow]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this, I've been somewhat occupied.

Results from "rfkill list":
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no

[editline]3rd November 2011[/editline]

Nevermind, I removed 11.04 and installed 11.10.

[Boris-B]

They're all softblocked, you should be able to run

rfkill unblock all

[DeadCow]

[QUOTE=Boris-B;33103942]They're all softblocked, you should be able to run

rfkill unblock all

[/QUOTE]

I did run that, but for some reason they became hardblocked after. Eventually it was softblocked AND hardblocked, and I couldn't get anything to change.

I installed Ubuntu 11.1, it seems to be working flawlessly now.

Thanks for trying to help though!

[P320]

I once bought an HP TX1000 laptop and it had a WLAN card whitelist in the BIOS. I was unaware. Linux did not like my BCM4311, so I bought one with an Atheros chipset. The laptop refused to boot because of the whitelist. I had to download the latest BIOS update, and open it with a hex editor, and overwrite one of the Broadcom hardware IDs with my Atheros one. After flashing the new BIOS, everything worked! :D Still pissed me off though that hardware vendors control shit as petty as a wireless card upgrade. :rolleyes: