Hi William,
> I'm sure someone has seen this before: there doesn't seem to be a problem > posted that nobody knows. > > > I have a Toshiba Satellite A660, running Ubuntu 14.04 > > > In the past, I've been able to :-- > > > 1. tether my smartphone to the laptop > > 2. go to a coffeeshop that has a WiFi and pick it up with the laptop. > > > Now I can't. > > > I can click on the “fan” and whilst it will open, nothing WiFi registers. > Not evne when the smartphone swears it's emulating a portable hotspot. > > > Took the laptop to the local computer shop. Was asked whether I'd had > Windows on the laptop in the past. Answer yes. Well, since the switch is a > Window switch, it might be a vagrant piece of Window leftover that turned > it off. > > > This sounds like Olde Stuffe. > > > Nevertheless, I can't pick up any WiFi. And Fn-F8 doesn't turn on anything. > > > I'm reluctant to believe this is a Toshiba peculiarity (as I've also been > told). I've had it working with earlier versions of Ubuntu. > > > Any suggestions will be gratefully acted upon. I have had this problem recently on an old HP laptop. On this laptop there is a switch which is electronic not mechanical. Try as I might in Linux, I could not get the wireless to switch on yet in Windows XP it was fine. Turns out that the wireless card software in Windows was able to permanently turn the wireless off so I had to reset it there. After that, it is always fine in Linux (Fedora 20). So you might have to look hard at the software in Windows for the solution to your problem. Happy hunting. Regards, Rick Phillips -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
