cant activate 2200bg wireless on FC8 (Dell 410), works under XP
 

This is my 2nd day working with Linux (Fedora Core 8). I haven't had any meaningful exposure to Linux though do know my way around Unix in general. I tried a number of things picked up on google and this forum - no positive results so far.
System->Administration->Network says Wireless eth1 status is "Inactive". "Delete", "Activate" & "Deactivate" buttons are grayed out (disabled). Wired eth0 interface is working fine.
This D410 laptop is dual-boot and wireless works fine under XP.
Tried to add another wireless connection eth1:1 [Mode: Auto, Network Name (SSID): Auto, Channel: 1, Transmit rate: Auto, Key: 0x???????? (Hex WEP Key for my wireless router), DHCP (Automatically obtain IP & DNS from provider), Set MTU to 1500]. For eth1:1 Activate/Deactivate option is available. When I click on "Activate", I get "Determining IP information for eth1:1... failed; no link present. Check cable?"
Can anyone point me to the right direction? Detailed step-by-step instructions are preferable.

eth1:1 would be an alias for eth1, like if you wanted the nic to have more than 1 IP address.
When you click on configure for eth1, you should get a box with options to set up that interface.

Thanks. That much I know, but unfortunately it doesn't help me in resolving my problem...

From a terminal window, I'd check the output of lsmod to see if the wireless NIC module is being loaded. Then run ifconfig and iwconfig and review the output of these. (Must be run as root or use sudo).

You may need to get specific version data on your wireless NIC and check for Linux compatibility as well as the best driver to use.

Thanks. The relevant lsmod entries appear to be these:

ipw2200 131209 0
ieee80211 30473 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 8385 1 ieee80211
###################################################

Ifconfig for eth1 (wireless interface):
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:12:F0:19:70:B6
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:119006 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:13514 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:18 Base address:0xa000 Memory:dfcff000-dfcfffff
############################################

iwconfig eth1 (I never dealt with wireless under unix/linux before):
eth1 unassociated ESSID:off/any Nickname:"new-host"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Sensitivity=8/0
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
##############################

Not sure how to get specific version data on my wireless NIC and to check for Linux compatibility as well as the best driver to use.

not sure if this will work on a laptop wireless card but try running lspci to get the full details of the card

lspci (run as root, the line related to wireless h/w):
02:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection (rev 05)