Enable access to WLAN

Question

I was given a Acer Aspire One A110 Netbook (ca. 6 years old) with Ylmf OS.

So far I get along quite well, but one problem remains - unsolved:

• Although my WLAN is correctly set up and works with other computers I can't connect to the internet on my Aspire One.

When turning on the netbook I can choose start options. I choose the option where it gives the information: Ylmf OS, Linux 2.6.31-17-generic. No problem, username and password, and I reach the screen with all the icons etc.

The tray at the bottom right corner shows the icon of two screens and red cross, the tooltip says: "No Network connection". Right click on the icon opens a little window. The checkboxes "Enable Networking" and "Enable Notifications" are activated, "Enable wireless" is not available for checking. Information on the Network Manager is Applet 0.7.998. Left click on this icon opens a window, I read: Wired network: disconnected, Wireless Networks: wireless is disabled.

The icon on the top right corner of 3 connected screens offers no possibility to enable the network, neither by left or right mouseclick.

I went through "Start" > "System" > "Preferences" > "Network Connections" > "Wireless" (Tab) and added the name of my WLAN and edited it with SSID name, Ad-hoc Mode, WPA & WPA2 Personal Security and password and said "Apply".

I also went through "Start" > "System" > "Administration" > "Network Tools" > "Devices" (Tab) und changed from "Loopback interface (lo)" to "Wireless Interface (wlan0)". Since there's no way to save this I just closed the window. Returning to it once again the change was undone.

Still: I can't connect to the Internet/to my WLAN.

Supplement: On it's body Acer Aspire AOA110 model has an external manual switch to turn on/turn off wifi. This switch is correctly working. fn+F2 or fn+F3 are not working for this purpose. My private WLAN is working correctly: When operating my Aspire with Windows XP Pro (installed) connecting to the internet via WLAN is working correctly. The switch is working correctly when running the netbook with Windows XP.

I tried sudo rfkill list; it returned:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
soft blocked: no
hard blocked: no

Answer 1

Wireless Networks: wireless is disabled

This indicates that no wireless network interface is available. This could be either because you're missing the appropriate driver, or because the wifi is disabled.

Linux kernel 2.6.31 is from 2009, so it's possible that your driver is too old for this chip. The Arch Wiki lists 2.6.27 as the minimum kernel version, but it's possible that some models have a more recent version of the chip that requires a more recent driver.

It's also possible that the wifi is disabled. Many laptops have a wifi and Bluetooth kill switch that turns off these chips to save energy. This can be either a button on the side or on the top, or an Fn+… key combination. If you can't find the button, you should be able to enable it in software: install the rfkill package and run sudo rfkill unblock all on the command line.