Inspiron 6400/1505 & Intel 3945 how to?

[Jason Taylor]

On 10/22/07, Fulko Hew <fulko.hew at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 10/22/07, Mary Ellen Foster <mefoster at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 22/10/2007, Fulko Hew <fulko.hew at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > a) when I start NetworkManager(Dispatcher) and KNetworkManager,
> > >    KNetworkManager does not list my wired eth0, and does not list
> > >    any wireless networks.
> >
> > Are you using knetworkmanager on Rawhide? As far as I know,
> > knetworkmanager doesn't work with the newest NetworkManager and you
> > should use nm-applet instead.
>
>
> Yes, I was trying to use knetworkmanager.
>
> I tried nm-applet last week, and that didn't work for me,
> so I gave up on it. But today... IT WORKS!  :-)
>
> So... as it stands:
>
>  a) I appear to have wireless working now.
> b) use 'nm-applet', not 'knetworkmanager'
>
> but...
>
>  c) The wireless LED on the laptop no longer shows any network activity.
> d) Fn-F2 no longer disables (controls) wireless
> e) When I try to use Fn-F2, it is ignored, wireless continues to work,
>    and /var/log/messages complains with:
>
> Oct 22 12:50:36 fulkol kernel: iwl3945: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
> Oct 22 12:50:36 fulkol kernel: Kill switch must be turned off for wireless
> networking to work.
>
>
>
>

After doing a little research this appears to be a known issue. The
kernel appears to not be able to differentiate between hardware
killswitches and software killswitches, hence the conflicting dmesg
information and actual configuration. It should be noted this is stuff
I have observed and no documentation seems to be around to prove or
disprove. While the LED"s don't seem to light up appropriately, if you
do a:

'echo 2 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0'

the Fn + F2 should appropriately activate and deactivate, however as I
mentioned, at least on my laptop the LED doesn't work.

-Jason

-Jason