Alright, I have read a lot of similar threads, and I think this situation is a little different, so I'm making a new thread.

I'm running Suse 10.1. I recently bought a wireless PCI card (Linksys WMP54G v 4.1). It has the RT61 Chipset.

I tried using Ndiswrapper, but I couldn't get it working.

I ended up following this guide http://susewiki.org/index.php?title=...Wireless_Cards

which got me up and running!

The problem: I was able to connect to the router, and the internet when my router was wide open. If I want to do WEP following the instructions in the list (which is setting up WEP with iwpriv) it doesn't want to connect. I can see the router if I do an iwlist ra0 scan, but it just won't connect.

I looked into wpa_supplicant, but it doesn't list the RT61 as a driver that is compatible with it. I ran into problems when I tried wpa_supplicant with the Generic Linux wireless drivers. I considered not broadcasting my SSID and using MAC filtering so I'd be the only one that could connect to my router, but then my traffic would be unencrypted which I'd rather not do.

Since I have the card working, I'm hesitant to go the route of trying to get ndiswrapper going, but it kinda sounds like I may have to do that in order to get wpa_supplicant working.

Or, if there's a way I can use WEP with the current setup, I'd much rather do that.

Anyone have any ideas?

You can also set WEP keys with iwconfig:

iwconfig ra0 key WEPHexKeyHere

Check out man iwconfig for more options around setting a WEP key with iwconfig.

I'm assuming by generic driver you mean the wext driver. Maybe if you post your wpa_supplicant.conf file and the command you use to bring it up, we can do some troubleshooting.
Let me point out a couple of things. First, not broadcasting your SSID does absolutely nothing in terms of security. There are plenty of tools out there that can easily find access points with their SSID broadcast turned off. Second, spoofing a MAC address is trivial. Any script kiddie can do it. So lets concentrate on getting some encryption up and running.

Cool, I wasn't aware.
I tried this, and iwconfig showed the interface was using the proper WEP key, but it was never able to grab an IP from my router.

This is exactly what I meant.

The wpa_supplicant.conf I was using was the default.config. However, I can't seem to get wpa_supplicant functioning now. I have downloaded wpa_supplicant 0.4.9, which I believe is the newest.

I get a boatload of errors on 'make'. I think I am missing the openssl development packages, which it seems to want. I'll get those installed and come back here and post what's going on.

I disagree. While it is in no means a secure approach, doing these things makes you harder to find and harder to get into than a wipe open router. Unless someone is sniffing, your router won't be picked up. If the choice is between not broadcasting and using MAC filtering or leaving it wide open, this is a safer approach.

However, I recognize that this isn't really secure, which is why I'm looking for help on here

i had the same trouble with wep encryption

i did the initial config, then used ifconfig to enter my key.
lastly, i redid the TEST section from the susewiki page.

everything works now, i hope it does for you.

good luck,
hippie