If something can be turned on or off, I don't want to rely on the OS to do it. Give me a hard switch. This even goes for system power.
I click on the wireless icon and click "turn off". It's good that command-line syntax exists, but that doesn't make it the only way, or necessarily the simplest way.
For that matter, some laptop models offer a function key to do the same thing.
For that, the laptop must be on and booted. The main advantage of the hardware rfkill switch is that you can flick it to disabled before booting or waking up the laptop, so that it doesn't even try to connect before you can get to the wireless icon.
(I've done that before: on a plane, want to use the laptop, which is sleeping in the bag; just flick the rfkill switch and open the lid to resume from suspend.)
Fair point. However, planes don't require turning off wifi or bluetooth during normal flight anymore. (And even when they did, no actual harm was done either way.)
When I last flew (domestically, last year), the instruction was still that devices could only be used if they had an "airplane mode" function. Things might be different in your country. (And yes, I know normal 802.11 probe request packets won't do much interference, if any, to airplane systems. Still, it doesn't harm to flick the rfkill switch to disabled.)
Sometimes airlines fail to communicate that well. A friend of mine had a flight where they first warned against using any device with any kind of radio transmitter, shortly followed by "please enjoy our in-flight wifi".
Oh wait, they're doing that already. And the usability sucks.
I'm running i3, not GNOME. I want a damn hardware switch when I need to flick wireless off. I don't want to have to keyboard OR mouse around to do it. You want a plain black slab, go buy one. There's a market for what we want, and ThinkPads shouldn't be that plain black slab. Leave that to Apple.
If you have to drop to a console prompt and run rfkill in order to disable your wifi... then the flight attendant will have no idea whether your wifi is enabled or not.
He or she WON'T gawk with impressed amazement that you're a Linux user. For that matter, neither will anyone here.
That's just patently wrong with regards to latching ThinkPad lids, as the latch is actually saving the lid hinge from wearing out prematurely.
(which is one of the reasons for my recent model downgrade)
> I have to wonder, why? The OS can do that quite well in software.
You can't think of any nice reasons why it may be nice to have hardware blocking software from reactivating all the antennas on your machine at will?
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/34956/who-needs-an-ex...
I have to wonder, why? The OS can do that quite well in software.
> Latching lid
More moving parts means more potential breakage.
> They certainly don't need to make it any thinner -- I've had to carry some Macbooks around and the sharp edges are not very hand-friendly. I think 1" throughout is about right for a laptop thickness.
Different customers have different preferences, but the majority of people do like thin, almost as much as light.
All that aside, check out the proposed ThinkPad Retro. Looks quite promising to me.