I have the same problem, a 32 bits toshiba nb255, it first had the windows 7 bu next I installed the ubuntu 11.04. The wifi does not turn on. I used the following issues

• the commands rfkill unblock wlan0, sudo ifconfig wlan0 down; they were not able.
• by setting up the bios in advanced menu, the wireless communication sw in ON, but it did not work also.
• neither the utilities toshiba nor utilities of ubuntu (wicd, wifi radar).
• by using gedit to file group, nothing.
• by installing madwifi packet, nothing.
• by exporting the wifi driver from windows to ubuntu, by means of the NDISwrapper packet, neither.

I put the current scripts of the ouput of the cli

root@zorrillo:~# rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes

root@zorrillo:~# sudo lspci | grep Atheros
07:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
root@zorrillo:~# 

root@zorrillo:~# ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  direcciónHW 88:ae:1d:47:df:e1  
          ACTIVO DIFUSIÓN MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Métrica:1
          Paquetes RX:0 errores:0 perdidos:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          Paquetes TX:0 errores:0 perdidos:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          colisiones:0 long.colaTX:1000 
          Bytes RX:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupción:43 Dirección base: 0xe000 

lo        Link encap:Bucle local  
          Direc. inet:127.0.0.1  Másc:255.0.0.0
          Dirección inet6: ::1/128 Alcance:Anfitrión
          ACTIVO BUCLE FUNCIONANDO  MTU:16436  Métrica:1
          Paquetes RX:8 errores:0 perdidos:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          Paquetes TX:8 errores:0 perdidos:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          colisiones:0 long.colaTX:0 
          Bytes RX:480 (480.0 B)  TX bytes:480 (480.0 B)

ppp0      Link encap:Protocolo punto a punto  
          Direc. inet:189.203.115.236  P-t-P:192.168.226.1  Másc:255.255.255.255
          ACTIVO PUNTO A PUNTO FUNCIONANDO NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Métrica:1
          Paquetes RX:6384 errores:30 perdidos:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          Paquetes TX:6893 errores:0 perdidos:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          colisiones:0 long.colaTX:3 
          Bytes RX:5473081 (5.4 MB)  TX bytes:974316 (974.3 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  direcciónHW 00:26:4d:c3:d0:44  
          DIFUSIÓN MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Métrica:1
          Paquetes RX:0 errores:0 perdidos:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          Paquetes TX:0 errores:0 perdidos:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          colisiones:0 long.colaTX:1000 
          Bytes RX:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

note.-it is logical all the counters are cero if the wireless device is down

root@zorrillo:/home/zorrillo/Descargas/802BGA# ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill  
root@zorrillo:/home/zorrillo/Descargas/802BGA# 

It would seem the wireless switching does not react with whichever ubuntu 11.04 command (I hope to be wrong). The target remains the same, in order of the scripts above.

I am worried, I have tried to find any answer for days and nights. Toshiba does not supply drivers or soft support for linux, marketing of course.

I only see the device is up by protocols and down phisically, My question is, is it possible to enable or not shutdown physically the device?, because in the toshiba model nb255 the wifi is not set up/down bye means of a physical switch, but by means a combination of Fn + F8 (only for windows 7, no one more), Is there one possibility to configure the hot keys in ubuntu?