The Problem:
I have a dual boot setup with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 14.04. Everything was working fine until yesterday morning after login I couldn't get the wifi in ubuntu stopped to work (see details below) the windows part seems to work just fine. I would like to restore the wifi in ubuntu.
Some Background:
The last time everything was fine, I was trying to (unsuccessfully) install haskell-platform in ubuntu (see here ). I followed the advice here and downgraded my libgl1-mesa-glx package. As a result some brutal changes took place and I had to reinstall Xorg and Desktop-Environment. The problem with network manager started after that so I am guessing this was the source.
As mentioned before, I can access wifi via Windows. I can also access wifi by using a live ubuntu-usb. So, I can install packages to my hdd-ubuntu distribution. This makes me believe that there is no hardware problem and somehow I have deleted some essential packages.
I am a noob in networking issues so most of what I have done (outlined below) is based on my very limited (and perhaps wacky) understanding and reading through many threads on this site and elsewhere. So it is entirely possible that I have missed something trivial.
What I did
I purged and then reinstalled the packages network-manager, resolvconf; isc-dhcp-client and isc-dhcp-server packages couple of times.
This doesn't seem to solve the problem.
My ifconfig -a reads:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 78:45:c4:b6:b4:85
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)
Interrupt:17
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:27488 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:27488 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2028140 (2.0 MB) TX bytes:2028140 (2.0 MB)
virbr0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 3e:e3:92:b9:ab:c6
inet addr:192.168.122.1 Bcast:192.168.122.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
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:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 08:3e:8e:04:2f:9f
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)
lshw -C shows
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 01
serial: 08:3e:8e:04:2f:9f
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.13.0-77-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
resources: irq:19 memory:f7d00000-f7d7ffff memory:f7d80000-f7d8ffff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: AR8162 Fast Ethernet
vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:09:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 10
serial: 78:45:c4:b6:b4:85
capacity: 100Mbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm pciexpress msi msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=alx latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
resources: irq:47 memory:f7c00000-f7c3ffff ioport:e000(size=128)
Some other configuration files that I checked were :/etc/network/interfaces which reads
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
I added and then commented out #auto eth0, #iface eth0 inet dhcp, #auto wlan0, #iface wlan0 inet dhcp because it didn't solve the problem and just started the message waiting for network configuration when booting into ubuntu.
My /etc/resolv.conf reads
#Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 127.0.1.1
nameserver 8.8.8.8
My /etc/hosts reads
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 my-comp
#The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
and my /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf reads
[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile,ofono
dns=dnsmasq
[ifupdown]
managed=false
My iwconfig outputs:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=16 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
If tried `sudo ifdown wlan0' and 'sudo ifup wlan0' and didn't get any output which makes me think they are ok.
I am looking for any directions that I might take to solve the problem. One possible way out, I think, is to try to transfer all relevant packages from live-usb to my home folder but I am not sure how to go about it.... I would prefer any solution short of a fresh install at this point.
Thank you for your help in advance (and special thanks for any impromptu networking lessons too). I would be happy to put any additional information.
Edit
Some additional info based on answers/comments.
rfkill list output
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
rfkill listand the output didn't indicate a soft-block. I have updated the out put in the question. – DBS Jan 30 '16 at 23:21