Help with Wireless Adapter and Roaming Mode

[styfle]

I'm am new to ubuntu (windows user) and I thought I would give my laptop a new life by installing ubuntu on it. Everything seems to work great considering its about 6 or 7 years old. The problem is my network adapter. It completely screws up my system when I have it in roaming mode, but I tried manual connection and that worked perfectly. It's a Linksys WPC54G Ver.2. Here's a picture

Any ideas how to fix it?

[styfle]

I forgot to mention what happens if I have roaming selected, it startes to connect to the network and then the icon next the the volume disappears. Then my keyboard doesnt work and the only thing I can do is reboot.

[styfle]

Bump...
Any ideas?

[anewguy]

Did you install a driver for your wireless, and if so, how? If not, is it using one of the ones built in to Ubuntu?

[styfle]

Did you install a driver for your wireless, and if so, how? If not, is it using one of the ones built in to Ubuntu?

No I didn't install any drivers. I just assumed it was working since I could see wireless networks. I honestly don't know how to install drivers on ubuntu.

[styfle]

Oh, and when I try to connect, the wifi icon next to the volume disappears and then my keyboard stops working. It's really weird

[Tatty]

try running:

sudo iwconfig <your device (eg wlan0)> essid <your ESSID> key <key>

[styfle]

Is the ESSID the name of the router?
I forgot to mention that my router has WEP encryption

[Tatty]

Is the ESSID the name of the router?
I forgot to mention that my router has WEP encryption

Yes ESSID is the name of your router. If you are unsure then do

sudo iwlist scan

to get this information.

WEP is fine for now, as it is easier to get working than WPA, just put your wep key where i wrote <key>. Make sure you put this in as a hex key rather than a passphrase - you are supposed to be able to put in a passphrase in the format key s:<passphrase>, however this never worked for me.

After you get this problem sorted you may wish to consider converting to WPA as WEP can be cracked fairly easily. Then you will have to install wpasuppliment to get ubuntu to connect.

[styfle]

try running:

sudo iwconfig <your device (eg wlan0)> essid <your ESSID> key <key>

I did that and nothing seemed to happen. I did another sudo iwconfig and only my network came up