Install Slackware?

Kidding. Dunno what to suggest at this point.

There's some wireless drivers compiled in the newer kernels as in SUSE 10.2 which screw up some of the Linksys cards --I used to have ndiswrapper working perfectly with a wpc linksys pcmcia card in SUSE 10.0 but the default driver (the wrong one for my card) which I can't override in 10.2 won't work with my card.

I've gone back to using my older Orinoco card --works out of the box. (Slower speed however 11 mps).

Cheers

-K

Ah, 1kyle, you may have hit on the issue (and I should have asked earlier).

The bcm43xx module cannot coexist with ndiswrapper and it may be the fly in the ointment.

essinc, type the command lsmod. That will list all of the loaded modules. Verify that ndswrapper is loaded and look for bcm43xx. If the bcm driver is there, remove it. In fact, I'd remove both and reload ndiswrapper like so:
modprobe -r bcm4300
modprobe -r ndiswrapper
modprobe ndiswrapper

Then, look for your interface.

Okay, I re-installed suse and wlan0 showed up again. Here's some output from iwconfig and other things after installing netusb.inf:

KOS-MOS:/home # iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"Linksys"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry limit:8 RTS thr=1536 B Fragment thr=1536 B
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

KOS-MOS:/home # ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:06:25:B07:A2
BROADCAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

KOS-MOS:/home # ndiswrapper -a 077B:2219 netusb
couldn't create symlink for "066B:2211.F.conf": File exists -
installation may be incomplete
couldn't create symlink for "066B:2212.F.conf": File exists -
installation may be incomplete
couldn't create symlink for "066B:2219.F.conf": File exists -
installation may be incomplete
couldn't create symlink for "077B:2219.F.conf": File exists -
installation may be incomplete
couldn't create symlink for "09AA:3642.F.conf": File exists -
installation may be incomplete
driver 'netusb' is not installed (properly)!
KOS-MOS:/home # ndiswrapper -l
netusb : driver installed
device (077B:2219) present (alternate driver: at76_usb)

notes:
I changed the essid name from "off/any" to "Linksys" as that's our network's name.
I've tried several different versions of the same driver (from linksys website, from the disk, from other driver download sites, etc.) and the output is essentially the same, except sometimes minus all the "couldn't create symlink... file exists" lines.
Any tips?

Sorry, didn't see your post! I'll try this.

Okay, there was no bcm module from the lsmod output, but I did see "at76_usb" - that's the driver that ndiswrapper -l keeps telling me is an alternate for my hardware. Should I try removing that?

Yes, or try using it. One or the other, but not both.

Your last iwconfig output looks good. The device is associated with the access point. Are you getting errors when you try to obtain an IP address?

I tried the modprobe commands listed, and while at76_usb disappeared from lsmod, it still shows up in ndiswrapper -l. Also, wlan0 has disappeared again D:
How would I "use" at76_usb? Also, how do I obtain an IP address?

When you reinstalled SuSE, did you reinstall the Windows drivers using ndiswrapper? The messages posted above seem to suggest not.

To use the alternative driver, look for the docs on it - you may need to install firmware. A good start would be modprobe at76-usb

When I reinstalled suse this time, I didn't even bother doing any network card configuration in the installation menu. As soon as I booted to the desktop for the first time, I went through all the motions for installing ndiswrapper and the driver.