Ok, you've got me... Windows XP drivers? Ndis wrapper?

Is this a technique to try to get XP drivers to function in Linux?

Also post the results/output of iwconfig

I am not at my Linux computer right now, so I can't post the output, but let me describe the installation steps. I was looking into RTL8180 driver, but there is no way I can undestand what I need to do to install and configure it. Someone suggested to try ndiswrapper, so I downloaded the latest version. In the documentation it say that one has to first compile a driver by using winxp drivers (point it to the folder with winxp drivers). so everything went without errors, and after modprobe ndiswrapper, the card comes up. But that's as far as I get. I won't be able to post the I/O stuf until later tonight.

This sounds like too much of a kludge which may be why you are having so much trouble.

e.g. as because of the vendor problem it was suggested to you to utilize XP drivers.

Ok, but using XP drivers in Linux is problematic at best because it "breaks" the distribution and Linux from the standpoint that you are introducing something which should not be there.

Imaging trying to install a driver for a mainframe on your XP machine, and you'll get the point.

It SHOULDn't work.

If it works at all, it's usually miraculous!

That said, if iwconfig is returning results, then you are in luck.

The reason is that iwconfig is the basis for using a WiFi adapter.

the ifup command does nothing more than pass parameters to the iwconfig command. So if the latter works, then you should be able to get things running.

For the documentationon the ndiswrapper installation, the driver should only use the .inf and .sys files of the WinXP version of the driver to actually drive the radio stuff in the card. You see that from how I describe some things I am poking in the dark without knowing what I am looking for. I am at will of installation guides and other HOWTO I find on the net. Nevertheless, some things I have done seem to work. If you are interested, look at ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net to see what they have done. In my case iwconfig does return AP info, BUT the browser cannot see the card or the stuff that's coming through it. It's only looking for stuff from eth0 which is my network card for hard connection. I am still lost, I feel the solition is simple, but I can't seem to pinpoint it...

The NDISwrapper may "drive" the card, but this is not the same as configuring Linux to use the card.

That is what iwconfig does at a low level. It sets things up so that communication can occur.

Time to clear things up I feel.

Ndiswrapper takes XP drivers and enables them them to be used in Linux. No, you cant just use XP drivers, you need Ndiswrapper. It is still experimental but is a very, very good product. The reason wireless support is so dire in linux is because very few chipset manufacturers release their driver source code. If they dont do that, no open source driver. So ndiswrapper attempts to bypass the problem by allowing the XP drivers to work in linux. Ideally this would mean that the manufacturers just go on releasing Win32 drivers and ndiswrapper emulates it perfectly but this isnt the case.
To be brutal, Realtek 8180 is a cheap and nasty chipset, only found on low-end cards. You get what you pay for. Everyone has been having issues with 8180; I'd go and get a different card myself.
Hope this clears things up,
Regards
Chris

... anyway post the output of iwconfig.