Wifi Activity Light works too well

[jonathan9]

My notebook has a wifi activity light on the hinge of my notebook right below the display smack dab in the center and very big and bright. (The cutoff switch is just "below" it on the notebook body.)

Under dapper, when the wifi was "working" the light was on "solid", otherwise it was off "solid" - no blinking.
When I upgraded to gutsy and hardy, the light did not work at all and was always off.

It started working when I upgraded to intrepid.
Now, I'm on jaunty and it works, but it shows all activity which means that it looks like a flashing traffic stop light and is extremely distracting.

If this was a desktop with the light off to the side somewhere, this would be great, but as it is, it's awful.

Is there any way to get it to just be on if wifi is connected and off if it isn't (no blinking) or, failing that, just plain off? I'm about ready to put some tape over it!

TIA

Joe

Centrino Duo 1.66/HP dv5020us notebook/1GB ram/320GB hdd/kubuntu jaunty

[lmilano]

Re: Wifi Activity Light works too well

Mmm. My first reaction was "acpi". Of course you are using auto-suspend and such, so disabling acpi is not a good option. Controlling it would be nice. I guess you need something like this:

http://lapsus.berlios.de/

Maybe this post focuses your search a bit (both in the Kubuntu repos and perhaps Google). Good luck, and pls keep us posted. It's a shame to have to stick some tape in a laptop.

[jonathan9]

Re: Wifi Activity Light works too well

That looked a lot like what I want, but not for my notebook (although I didn't see the particular option I was looking for when I scanned the documentation).

I'll wait to see if anyone else has ideas.

Thanks.

Joe

[dochawk]

Re: Wifi Activity Light works too well

A neatly cut square or circle of black electrical tape.

You can even poke a pinhole in it to let a small amount of light out.

hawk

[jonathan9]

Re: Wifi Activity Light works too well

Thanks. We can fix anything with duct tape!!

The idea of opening a pin hole is just what I needed. It will still show without blazing int the night.

Joe