[clue-tech] wireless on Ubuntu

[dennisjperkins at comcast.net]

I spent last evening figuring out how to get WEP working on an Ubuntu desktop.  WPA would be better but the access point uses shared (restricted) WEP.  Considering how well Ubuntu set everything else up, I'm surprised at what was required to get WEP working.  It detected the Atheros chip and installed madwifi correctly.  

Ubuntu wants you to use NetworkManager to configure the network.  That is where my problems began.  It seems too primitive if you want more than basic WEP.  (I haven't tried it with WPA, so maybe that is better.)  I could set a key, but I could not set restricted mode.  Multiple keys can't be set, but I don't know how useful that feature is anyway.

Maybe I asked the wrong question, but Ubuntu's documentation seems to gloss over WEP as much as possible.  I finally found the necessary information on the Madwifi site.

Luckily I didn't need to set up roaming profiles.