Making a Linux laptop flight-safe; disabling wireless/radio

Posted by SpoonMeiser on Super User See other posts from Super User or by SpoonMeiser
Published on 2009-07-31T18:39:50Z Indexed on 2012/10/21 11:06 UTC
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Filed under:

linux

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wireless-networking

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laptop

I'm going on a long flight tomorrow, and would like to be able to use my laptop during the journey.

Wireless devices like WiFi and bluetooth interfere with airplanes instruments, and shouldn't be used on flights.

If my laptop does not have a physical rf-kill switch, is it sufficient to just ensure that the relevant modules do not get loaded?

If so, is that always safe, or does it vary between different hardware?

My particular situation, is a Samsung NC10 netbook. Atheros 5k wireless hardware. Debian sid with kernel 2.6.30-1-686. However, I think it'd be interesting to know the answer to this question for the general case; not just my specific case.

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