This might also work on earlier versions of Ubuntu as well, but I tried this only on Hardy (8.04), and Intrepid (8.10).
If you were like me, you saw the feature to add the wireless device in the upper right of the window. You left clicked and saw your wireless network and said, “Cool, this is just like Windows. Just put in my KEY and I’m off and running!”
So, you do just that. No joy. Doesn’t accept your key.
You try again after you make sure that the spelling is correct. No joy. You try different options. You convert you ascii key to a hex key (or vice versa). No joy.
You give up and determine that you are just going to get by with a wired connection on that box.
Well that’s where I was and then I thought, “Let me try System->Administration->Network”
I unlocked it with my root password, and saw two Wireless options. Wasn’t sure which one would work for me so I tried them both.
I double-clicked the top one and it popped open a new window that had the “Enable Roaming Mode” button clicked. I unclicked that and manually put in my settings. I did this as well for the second wireless line, but I probably just need one of them. I still don’t know which one, but when I run
ifconfig -a
I have an IP address set for wlan0, but not wifi0.
Don’t forget to enable these settings by checking the box to the left for each wireless connection before closing out the “Network Settings” dialog.
I can’t remember if I rebooted or did a network restart via
/etc/init.d/networking restart
or
/etc/init.d/networking reload
but now it works, at least for me.
Now a cable is free for my desktop.