Hello. Absolute newbie here having problems wiping my laptop completely of the dark side (Windows).

I need help getting my wireless working. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I really want to use this whole drive (all massively-huge 40GB worth) for Ubuntu, and be rid of Microsoft forever if possible.

My wireless works for awhile in Ubuntu, then, after a bit, it stops. When it is working, my wireless light is on, and the value of 'rfkill' file is a zero (0). After it stops working, the light is off, and the 'rfkill' file holds a two (2).

The only way I can get the wireless working again is to boot into Windows, at which time the wireless starts working again very quickly. Once Windows turns on the wireless, I'm free to restart into Ubuntu and -- once again -- wireless is working and rfkill=0.

There doesn't seem to be any pattern as to why/when the wireless light goes off. And, using Windows to turn it on always works.

Any ideas?

Here is what I've got as a result of lshw -C network:

*-network:0
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 1
bus info: pci@0000:02:01.0
logical name: eth0
version: 10
serial: 00:02:3f:08:91:d8
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=8139too driverversion=0.9.28 latency=128 maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 multicast=yes
resources: irq:10 ioport:a000(size=256) memory:d0001000-d00010ff
*-network:1
description: Wireless interface
product: PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:02:02.0
logical name: eth1
version: 05
serial: 00:0e:35:63:e3:16
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ipw2200 driverversion=1.2.2kmprq firmware=ABG:9.0.5.27 (Dec 12 2007) latency=128 maxlatency=24 mingnt=3 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11g
resources: irq:10 memory:d0000000-d0000fff

And here is the output of iwconfig when wireless is working:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"linksys"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:1A:70:4A:F1:FF
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Sensitivity=8/0
Retry limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=50/100 Signal level=-71 dBm Noise level=-88 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:4 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:6

Thanks in advance for any help.