Comment 5 for bug 553782

Reopen Bug, more info!

Having exactly the same PC Desktop model from Medion, I can confirm this bug is still in Ubuntu Precise Pangolin 12.04 LTS as its probably a kernel related issue from kernel 2.6.32 up to 3.2.x or upstream 3.4. I will try to continue the contact with upstream kernel bugzilla as Peter did.

The hardware does functions fine under ubuntu 9.10 with 2.6.31 like Peter mentions, although its "soft blocked" by rfkill, but doing "rfkill unblock all wifi" the wifi hardware works fine.

Possible fix in missing module?
Like mentioned by Peter in newer versions of ubuntu with kernel 2.6.32up rfkill notes "hard blocked" instead of "soft blocked", but there is something else thats different. Ubuntu 9.10 shows the module "input-polldev" as loaded and used by rt2x00lib and I googled that its used by rfkill.

rt2500usb 21152 0
rt2x00usb 11548 1 rt2500usb
rt2x00lib 29756 2 rt2500usb,rt2x00usb
led_class 4096 1 rt2x00lib
input_polldev 3716 1 rt2x00lib
mac80211 181140 2 rt2x00usb,rt2x00lib
cfg80211 93052 2 rt2x00lib,mac80211

The newer version of ubuntu/kernel don't use the module "input_polldev", maybe input_polldev read or forced a good state of software/hardware block or it is indeed a hardware bug(wifi device itself reporting the wrong status), but I still like to know a way to work around it.

On the desktop machine there is no "hardware button" to control the wifi adapter. I might only try windows with a driver from ralink itself instead of the OEM medion. But alot of people already mention that NDISwrapper works fine...