First some clarification of the problem might be needed:
I am running Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 LTS on a Dell Latitude E6220 with a windows 7 dual boot.
The machine turns on with no problems, but once logged on
there is no option in settings to configure wireless connections,
nor does the machine connect automatically to my access point
as it would usually.
The output of rfkill:
1: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
4: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
would indicate that Ubuntu recognizes there is a wireless card installed,
however ifconfig:
eno1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 84:8f:69:f0:a9:2b
inet addr:10.156.204.69 Bcast:10.156.207.255 Mask:255.255.240.0
inet6 addr: fe80::fc2d:79c9:4832:5f54/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:11059 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6824 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:12929276 (12.9 MB) TX bytes:682773 (682.7 KB)
Interrupt:20 Memory:e1c00000-e1c20000
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:552 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:552 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:81751 (81.7 KB) TX bytes:81751 (81.7 KB)
contradicts this, as does:
sudo lshw -C network
both indicating that there is no wireless card installed (which there is).
Attempting to turn on the card as I have seen suggested elsewhere using ifconfig
with:
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
gives the following error:
wlan0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Fiddling with aeroplane mode and the physical switch on the machine also has no effect.
I am at a loss to suggest what may have caused this as the previous session to the
one where the issue occurred I made no changes to any relevant settings or installed
or removed any networking related packages, although I know that it can't be a physical issue with the card because windows works fine.
solution:
having read Installing Broadcom Wireless Drivers and having followed the instructions to reinstall the device driver for my wireless card, wifi connection shows up as an option, and after reboot and disconnecting ethernet, the problem disappears.
