Wireless has completely vanished after upgrading to 12.04

[Mecer]

Hey everyone, I'm pretty new to linux, so I hope you could help me out here... You see, I've just recently upgraded from 10.04 to 12.04 on my laptop and wireless simply, absolutely vanished. It isn't listed on ifconfig, iwconfig says "No wireless extensions." and network-manager-gnome says "device not ready (firmware missing)".

I've tried installing tg3 and b43, but nothing works... Maybe it's some kind of conflict from the upgrade, as it was working absolutely fine before it. Thanks in advance for your help! Here's some info to boot, but ask anything you need!

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS"
Linux Mecer 2.6.32-40-generic #87-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 6 00:56:56 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection [8086:4237]
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 5100 AGN [8086:1211]
        Kernel driver in use: iwlagn
--
85:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1693] (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:30dd]
        Kernel driver in use: tg3

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04f2:b059 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd CKF7037 HP webcam
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 03f0:171d Hewlett-Packard Bluetooth 2.0 Interface [Broadcom BCM2045]
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 08ff:2810 AuthenTec, Inc. AES2810

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

tun0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=15 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          
0: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
2: phy1: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

[daslinkard]

Can you physically turn your wi-fi on either through a button on the laptop or through a combination of your FN key + one of your F keys? Or potentially uninstalling NetworkManager may correct the issue as I've seen this as a solution in previous threads.

[Mecer]

Can you physically turn your wi-fi on either through a button on the laptop or through a combination of your FN key + one of your F keys? Or potentially uninstalling NetworkManager may correct the issue as I've seen this as a solution in previous threads.

Yeah, I can... I have installed the gnome NetworkManager on kubuntu 10.04, so maybe something on the upgrade went wrong. How do I uninstall NetworkManager?

[daslinkard]

Yeah, I can... I have installed the gnome NetworkManager on kubuntu 10.04, so maybe something on the upgrade went wrong. How do I uninstall NetworkManager?

You should be able to run the following sudo command:

 sudo apt-get purge NetworkManager

[Mecer]

You should be able to run the following sudo command:

 sudo apt-get purge NetworkManager

Hmmm, all I got was "Unable to locate package NetworkManager"...

[BicyclerBoy]

In 12.04 I believe the wifi firmware is now in package
linux-firmware

Don't know for sure what driver your/hardware requires but..
For the b43 there are diff/new firmware cutting/loading tools.
The latest kernels (3.5) break the b43 broadcomm driver.

Why is your kernel (report in post #1) so old ? It is older than 10.04.3..
12.04.1 is using 3.2.0-29something..

Do you have your grub set to boot a specific linux image?

uname -r

[daslinkard]

In 12.04 I believe the wifi firmware is now in package
linux-firmware

Don't know for sure what driver your/hardware requires but..
For the b43 there are diff/new firmware cutting/loading tools.
The latest kernels (3.5) break the b43 broadcomm driver.

Why is your kernel (report in post #1) so old ? It is older than 10.04.3..
12.04.1 is using 3.2.0-29something..

Do you have your grub set to boot a specific linux image?

Upon further research I would agree with BicyclerBoy in updating linux-firmware.

[Mecer]

Upon further research I would agree with BicyclerBoy in updating linux-firmware.

Hmmm, that's weird... I tried:

pa@Mecer:~/Desktop/pk/Server/Linux/Driver$ sudo apt-get install linux-firmware
[sudo] password for pa: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
linux-firmware is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  liblualib50 libruby libt1-5 libgtkhtml3.14-19 liberb-ruby lesstif2 hddtemp rubygems1.8 libqt3-mt liblua50
  openbsd-inetd
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

pa@Mecer:~/Desktop/pk/Server/Linux/Driver$ sudo apt-get install linux-image-3.2.0-31-generic
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
linux-image-3.2.0-31-generic is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  liblualib50 libruby libt1-5 libgtkhtml3.14-19 liberb-ruby lesstif2 hddtemp rubygems1.8 libqt3-mt liblua50
  openbsd-inetd
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Apparently I have both the newest kernel and the newest linux-firmware installed... Maybe it's conflicting to the older versions? How do I remove them? Thanks a lot for the help, guys!!

[BicyclerBoy]

The kernel that is running could be diff, you have muliple kernel images installed..

uname -r

We are chasing the wrong driver..
The wifi is the Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN [8086:1211]
The driver is iwlagn..there are some bugs against this device, I can't find any solved posts..

You might have to plug in with cable for a while..

rfkill list

[Mecer]

The kernel that is running could be diff, you have muliple kernel images installed..

uname -r

We are chasing the wrong driver..
The wifi is the Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN [8086:1211]
The driver is iwlagn..there are some bugs against this device, I can't find any solved posts..

You might have to plug in with cable for a while..

rfkill list

Okay, I got these for both uname -r and rfkill list, respectively:

2.6.32-40-generic

0: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no