I am starting to put together a wireless networking howto that explains in full detail how to get wireless networking up in running using the wlan-ng drivers, the orinoco drivers (2.6 kernel), the hostap drivers, the ndiswrapper, and any other drivers people are using these days.

Can anyone who uses another driver other then that give me information on what driver you use and how it is installed. I want generic info, no distro specific stuff.

I could also use some first hand knowledge of the ndiswrapper stuff, as I have never used that personally.

If you aren't doing so then it would be great if you could write it as a LinuxAnswer:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/answers.php

Currently I am writting it in latex and will be converting it to HTML (single page and multipage) and PDF for download. I will also submit it to the linux answer site. But I don't want to submit it anywhere until it is much more complete then it is now, it'll probably take me a week to be to the point where I will post a link on here so people who have gotten things to work can check it out and tell me what they think.

Eventually I'll put it up at wireless.gtphitau.org or something like that.

I switched from RedHat 7.3 to Mandrake 9.2 recently because I
thought I'd be able to use my wireless, but no go so far.

I used www.Jennings.homelinux.net "Atmel USB on Mandrake9.2"
procedure as a guide, but have had not been successful. Below
are the things I've set up and the output from various utilities.
After all that, the service still can't seem to find the device.
There must be something else I'm missing.

My setup:
Mandrake 9.2
Belkin 802.11b wireless router
Belkin F5D6050 USB
router and receiver are in the same room, no obstructions
-------------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/networks

NETWORKING=yes
GATEWAYDEV=wlan0
GATEWAY=192.168.2.1
DOMAINNAME=Belkin
-------------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/hotplug/blacklist

usbvnet_rfmd
usbvnet_r505_2958
-------------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/sysconfig/ifcfg-wlan0

DEVICE=wlan0
CHANNEL=11
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.2.0
GATEWAY=192.168.2.1
WIRELESS_RATE=11M
WIRELESS_ESSID=WLAN
ONBOOT=yes
-------------------------------------------------------------------
ifconfig -a
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:30:BD:60:C4:FE
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:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
iwconfig
wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"okuwlan" Nickname:"okuwlan"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Channel:10 Cell: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:11Mb/s
RTS thr=1536 B Fragment thr=1536 B
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
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
-------------------------------------------------------------------
lsmod

at76c503-rfmd 40288 0 (unused)
usbdfu 9452 0 [at76c503-rfmd]
at76c503 54560 0 [at76c503-rfmd]
usb-uhci 25136 0 (unused)
usbcore xx 74988 1 [at76c503-rfmd usbdfu at76c503 usb-uhci]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
dmesg

at76c503.c: Generic Atmel at76c503/at76c505 routines v0.11beta4
usbdfu.c: USB Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) handler v0.11beta4
usb.c: registered new driver usbdfu
at76c503-rfmd.c: Atmel at76c503 (RFMD) Wireless LAN Driver
v0.11beta4
usb.c: registered new driver at76c503-rfmd
at76c503.c: $Id: at76c503.c,v 1.35 2003/07/30 06:31:51 jal2 Exp
$ compiled Sep 18 2003 12:37:20
at76c503.c: firmware version 1.101.2 #84 (fcs_len 4)
at76c503.c: device's MAC 00:30:bd:60:c4:fe, regulatory domain
FCC (U.S) (id 16)
at76c503.c: registered wlan0
-------------------------------------------------------------------
service network restart
Bringing up interface wlan0: Determining IP information for
wlan0... failed; no link present. Check cable?