Is MATE 16.04.5 missing the device tree overlay for disabling wifi? It was added to raspberrypi/linux 4.4.y branch Jan 2017 but I'm not sure how to verify in Ubuntu MatE. I'm running latest firmware:
lar@rv-server:~$ uname -a
Linux rv-server 4.4.38-v7+ #938 SMP Thu Dec 15 15:22:21 GMT 2016 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux
lar@rv-server:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial
lar@rv-server:~$ cat /proc/device-tree/model
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2
Even though I added the overlay to /boot/config.txt and rebooted:
# Additional overlays and parameters are documented /boot/overlays/README
#enable_uart=1
# Disable Bluetooth to reclaim UART for hardware serial port
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt
# Disable built-in WiFi
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-wifi
## pps-gpio
## Enable kernel support for GPS receiver pulse-per-second (PPS) input
dtoverlay=pps-gpio
the overlay isn't listed and no help topics are returned:
lar@rv-server:~$ dtoverlay -a | grep pi3
pi3-act-led
pi3-disable-bt
pi3-miniuart-bt
lar@rv-server:~$ dtoverlay -h pi3-disable-wifi
* No help found for overlay 'pi3-disable-wifi'
Just to be clear, there is definitely still a wireless interface:
ifconfig
...
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr b8:27:eb:3b:70:ec
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1987 errors:0 dropped:1987 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:784234 (784.2 KB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Is this because the pi3-disable-wifi overlay is just missing?
Edited to fix formatting