Had this problem myself and it was driving me mad but this was how I solved it. I think the problem is to do with the default gateway on your wireless card.
I had same issue with my wireless card. My card is not recognized by the system (hence I needed to use ndiswrapper) I had to manually create ifcfg-wlan0 file. In SuSE this file is located in /etc/sysconfig/network/ directory. I don't know but i think similar files are around /etc/init.d/rc?.d in mandrakew. In here there will probably be ifcfg-lo, ifcfg-eth0 (or possibly ifcfg-eth-id-00123456789ab or similar). To get your wireless working you need ifcfg-wlan0 with the right settings to use DHCP and set default gateway. I was lucky in that SuSE puts a ifcfg.template in the /etc/sysconfig/network/ directory together with a 'wireless' file. I pinched the bits out of both and created ifcfg-wlan0. Mine looks like:
STARTMODE='onboot'
BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
DHCLIENT_MODIFY_RESOLV_CONF='yes'
DHCLIENT_SET_DEFAULT_ROUTE='yes'
WIRELESS_ESSID='your_ESSID'
WIRELESS_KEY=''
WIRELESS_AP=''
WIRELESS_AUTH_MODE=''
WIRELESS_BITRATE='auto'
WIRELESS_CHANNEL=''
WIRELESS_DEFAULT_KEY='0'
WIRELESS_FREQUENCY=''
WIRELESS_KEY_0='your_key'
WIRELESS_KEY_1=''
WIRELESS_KEY_2=''
WIRELESS_KEY_3=''
WIRELESS_KEY_LENGTH='128'
WIRELESS_MODE='Managed'
WIRELESS_NICK=''
WIRELESS_NWID=''
WIRELESS_POWER='yes'
Just in case your interested the default Suse File is this.
## Path: Hardware/Wireless
## Description:
## Type: yesno
## Default: ""
## ServiceRestart: network
# If you have a wireless NIC and want to set some special wireless parameters
# then you can do that here in this file globally for all cards you have. But
# you can write each of these variables to the interface specific ifcfg-* files
# to handle things per card.
# The WIRELESS_* variable names match the option names of iwconfig. Have a look
# at 'man iwconfig' for details. Except WIRELESS_NICK the variables do nothing
# if empty.
#
# This variables decides if the special handling for wireless HW is used. If you
# have only one network interface card and it is wireless you can set it here to
# 'yes'. But it is much better, if you use that variable in the interface
# configuration files 'ifcfg-*', which overrides the general settings made here.
WIRELESS=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Set the operating mode of the device, which depends on the network
# topology. The mode can be Ad-hoc (network composed of only one cell and
# without Access Point), Managed (network composed of many cells, with
# roaming or with an Access Point), Mas_ ter (the node is the synchronisation
# master or act as an Access Point), Repeater (the node forward packets on the
# air), Secondary (the node act as a backup master/repeater) or Auto
WIRELESS_MODE=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Set the ESSID (or Network Name - in some products it may also called Domain
# ID). The ESSID is used to identify cells which are part of the same virtual
# network.
WIRELESS_ESSID=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Set the nickname, or the station name. Most 802.11 products do define it,
# but this is not used as far as the protocols (MAC, IP, TCP) are concerned
# and completely accessory as far as configuration goes. If this variable is
# empty we use the hostname
WIRELESS_NICK=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Set the Network ID (in some products it is also called Domain ID). As all
# adjacent wireless net_ works share the same medium, this parameter is used
# to differenciate them (create logical colocated networks) and identify
# nodes belonguing to the same cell.
WIRELESS_NWID=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Set the operating frequency or channel in the device. Value below
# 1000 are the channel number, value over this is the frequency in Hz. You
# must append the suffix k, M or G to the value (for exam_ ple, "2.46G" for
# 2.46 GHz frequency), or add enough '0'.
WIRELESS_FREQ=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Channels are usually numbered starting at 1, and you may use iwpriv(8) to
# get the total number of channels and list the available frequencies.
# Depending on regulations, some frequencies/channels may not be available.
WIRELESS_CHANNEL=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Set the sensitivity threshold. This is the lowest signal level for which we
# attempt a packet recep_ tion, signal lower than this are not received. This
# is used to avoid receiving background noise
WIRELESS_SENS=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# For cards supporting multiple bit rates, set the bit-rate in b/s. The
# bit-rate is the speed at which bits are transmitted over the medium, the
# user speed of the link is lower due to medium sharing and overhead.
WIRELESS_RATE=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Used to manipulate encryption or scrambling keys and encryption mode. To
# set the current encryption key, just enter the key in hex digits as
# XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX or XXXXXXXX. You can also enter the key as an ASCII
# string by using the s: prefix. 'off' disables encryption. Additionally you
# may add 'open' or 'restricted' after the key, open set the system in open
# mode (accept non-encrypted packets) and restricted discard non-encrypted
# packets.
# Examples: "0123-4567-89"
# "s
assword"
# "s
assword open"
# "off" (Don't do that! No! No! No!)
WIRELESS_KEY=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# RTS/CTS adds a handshake before each packet trans_ mission to make sure
# that the channel is clear. This adds overhead, but increase performance
# in case of hidden nodes or large number of active nodes.
WIRELESS_RTS=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# Fragmentation allow to split a IP packet in a burst of smaller fragments
# transmitted on the medium. In most cases this adds overhead, but in very
# noisy environment this reduce the error penalty.
WIRELESS_FRAG=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# If you need other options for iwconfig, then write the complete option string
# as you would append it to iwconfig but without the interface name to the
# variables below. For multiple options you may (but need not) add linebreaks in
# the string.
WIRELESS_IWCONFIG_OPTIONS=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# If you need to set options for iwspy, then write the complete option string as
# you would append it to iwspy but without the interface name to the variables
# below. For multiple options you may (but need not) add linebreaks in the
# string.
WIRELESS_IWSPY_OPTIONS=""
## Type: string
## Default: ""
# If you need to set options for iwpriv then write the complete option string as
# you would append it to iwpriv but without the interface name to the variables
# below. For multiple options you may (but need not) add linebreaks in the
# string.
WIRELESS_IWPRIV_OPTIONS=""
As your wireless conection might not be in all the time you probablly want to make the device hotplugable
STARTMODE='onboot'
If you want it to be hotplugable then
STARTMODE='hotplug'
As the card doesn't start on boot if you want to start it all I do is (su) iwconfig wlan0 - which starts it up. It is then hotpluggable.
If you have onboard wired you could unplug the cable from the onboard before you switch on the laptop if you want to use the wireless card. If you try rebooting with wired in, issuing iwconfig wlan0 and got both interfaces up simultaneously, however, route shows two default gateways (you can only have one) with eth0 as first so after unplugging the wire the wireless internet wouldn't work until I did ifdown eth0.
However, You probably don't need for both to work simultaneously so I'll park that for now!
Hope this works for you
Thanks to andrewdodsworth for helping me to get mine to work
