Comment 35 for bug 193970

Yes, it seems newer driver does work different way. In 2.6.24-16-generic kernel i have iwl4965 driver 1.2.0, which work it seems same way as in gutsy. On wifi off, nm gets information and remove device. On activation it does not need acpi event to reactivate, and it goes up itself. Ifconfig still report it as UP, even when rf_kill switch is on (value 2 in /sys/class/net/wlan0/device/rf_kill).

In 2.6.25 it does deactivate device on kill switch on, and even disable interrupt for wifi card. Card is down even after wifi is enabled by kill switch, you need to wake it up again. I have iwlwifi driver 1.2.23kds there, i think it is new behaviour of that driver. So yes, that might be propably because of newer kernel.