I installed Arch Linux on a laptop with a dead battery. RF-Kill hard block.

[Stephen_46]

Recently I installed Arch Linux on a laptop with a dead battery. It must be plugged in at all times for it to work. My plan was to keep it plugged in.

I did not realize that rfkill exists to prevent the wifi from using the last bit of battery power in the event it runs very low on a laptop.

I can't prove it here, but I have got the WPA2-PSK to work. The system sees it, but there is a hard block from rfkill on it. Again, probably because it sees that the battery is out of power.

Using "lsmod": iwldvm -> iwlwifi -> cfg80211 -> rfkill.

Is there a way to stop iwlwifi from calling rfkill? Or can I fool the system into ignoring that it is a laptop or that the battery is dead?

[Stephen_46]

Ok, I should at least tell you that I am using iwd. The passphrase and PSK are in the /var/lib/iwd/*.psk. They are being used at boot up.

Soft block is off, only hard block is on. RF- Kill can't revoke a hard block, it must be fixed by recharging the battery. Normally a good precaution, but in this case I would like to use the laptop without a battery.

[rproffitt]

I'm reading https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=236715 which appears to be the solution. Remember that I'm not able to duplicate your issue because I chose to fix broken things.

For specific Arch Linux issues my choice would be to ask in Arch Linux forums but hopefully this prior discussion will fix it for you. Yes, it's not simple enough a fix for many but hey, Linux.

[Stephen_46]

rfkill unblock all 

will not work.

I have been so focused on getting wifi to work, I forgot about the ethernet cable option. I accept that I got wifi working except for the module that won't let it work with a dead battery. The reason I know the wifi does work besides the commands that I used that I forgot that revealed that it is working, is that I could connect with wifi only with the installation media using the recommended iwctl. The module iwlwifi turns it off at boot via rfkill.

[rproffitt]

Then my fix is to plug in some USB WiFi. We get such for 10ish USD here. Or we tell the user to try other distros.

Be sure to ask in this Distro's own forum.

[rproffitt]

PS. I want to write about how much control we have at startup in Linux via the usual startup scripts located in the /etc/rc.

For most, that's a no-go since few want to tinker there. I can't tell you what to change since I'm just a long time Linux user, coder and such. For the office we fix bad laptops since such workarounds are too costly in terms of time. We can make more money doing almost anything else. I feel for you but to fix this you get to ask and hope in the Arch forums or dive into the scripts that run at startup in /etc/rc.