Hi.
1. My laptop has a built-in Wifi-Bluetooth thingy (RTL8723BE), which is defective, due to it being so many years old. Sometimes my kernel detects it, and sometimes it doesn't. So, it's unreliable. Therefore, I got a new USB wifi receiver to replace it.
2. Everything works fine, until I close the lid of my laptop. Once I lift the lid, the NetworkManager says ''Wifi disabled by hardware switch''. And rfkill as super user gives this output,
Code:
# rfkill unblock all
# rfkill list all
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
2: phy1: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
I know that there is supposed to be a physical switch that should turn that ''Hard blocked'' to yes. But on my laptop that thing doesn't work on Linux because of some bios settings. Few ago I did my research and it seems there is no way to toggle the ''Hard blocked'', and since my internal RTL8723BE is not being used, I'm not worried. But, the external wifi-receiver is a usb device. I can remove it, I can plug it in. I am sure it is not ''Hard blocked''. Yet NetworkManager still says that ''Wifi disabled by hardware switch''.
3. I tried to restart the NetworkManager service. (I use the runit init system.)
Code:
~ $ sudo sv restart NetworkManager
Password:
ok: run: NetworkManager: (pid 3052) 0s
Now, the NetworkManager gives a different error, ''Wifi is disabled'' and the checkboxes on 'Enable Networking' and 'Enable Wifi' is grayed out (not clickable).
It's fine if the BIOS is preventing my internal RTL8723BE from restarting, I want my external Wifi receiver to work. Anyone know the solution to this?
