Wireless turned off
 

I have a Toshiba laptop, on which I attempted to install Linux Mint,as I had done so successfully on my desktop. However, all though the installation started off okay, the wireless facility failed to work. I installed Linux Mint without the wireless connection. I have not been able to activate the wireless in any way. I was informed that wireless had been hardware deactivated. I've no idea how this could have happened and there is nothing in the Toshiba notes to say how wireless can be reactivated. There is no wireless switch anywhere, and why would it have been deactivated anyway?

Which Toshiba laptop do you have?

It's been years since I had a Tosh, but I have several laptops that have hardware keys for turning wireless on and off. I once accidentally turned the wireless off on the one I'm typing on right now and it took me a month to figure out what had happened.

On two of them (Dells), it's a function key with a little antenna mast symbol on it. On the other (Asus Travelmate), it's a button on the front near the latch release.

wireless turned off on my Toshiba laptop
 

Thanks for your replies. There IS a button with a wireless antenna on it, which would seem to be the wireless on/off button, but it doesn't do anything. After installing Linux Mint, it told me that lack of wireless was a hardware turn-off. It may be a combination of buttons, but trying to find out is almost impossible.

Hi,

what does rfkill (from the package with the same name) tell you?
Eg is anything listed as "blocked" in the output of
Also what is this wireless device? Eg output of
Evo2.

I am a Toshiba Satellite Laptop L650 user myself.

I read on some blog a while ago that if wireless was deactivated in Windows before, it can only be re-activated in Windows once again.

[EDIT:] I know this is not true though.

is supposed to undo the lock.

Are you on Broadcom wifi, by chance? [Just curious]

Wireless turned off
 

Thanks for your reply.

I cracked it about half-hour ago. There is a wireless button on my 850 which does nothing. It's supposed to light up green when Wireless is active, but it does absolutely nothing when i press it. I found out by downloading the complete manual. You press FN and F8. Hey presto! It works!

Hi,
Strange, in that case the F8 button should have had some sort of "wireless" logo on it, possibly in the same colour as the text on the fn key. Exactly which model is this notebook?

Anyway, glad it is working.

Cheers,

Evo2.

^^ Agree with Evo2. My L650 has no lights, but the keyboard has the wireless logo on it. Keep pressing Fn + F8 and you toggle wifi, bluetooth, all, none... At least on Windows.