Okay, here's my problem. I have a wireless network secured with WPA set up in my home, and running Ubuntu 5.10 on my laptop. With wpa_supplicant installed, I'm able to connect to the network and the Internet just fine. However, there is a second wireless network, "default" being run by a neighbor of mine. When I am connected to this network, I have crap reception, and the connection does not work.

I don't willingly choose connect to "default". However, while I'm running Ubuntu, when I'm connected to my home network, I will be randomly disconnected from my network and connected to "default", with no explanation. Obviously, this is a pain in the ass for me. I'm stumped and I have no idea how to stop this behavior from happening. What I want to know is if there's a way to blacklist "default", or even better, disable the behavior of being connected to "default".

While I'm not familiar with the configuration tools on Ubuntu, usually you do this by specifying the ESSID of the access point you want to use. The default is usually "auto" or "any", which is probably what is causing your problem.

Check the setup tool, and see where they allow you to specify the ESSID, set it to the ESSID of your access point, and you should only connect to that one.

When you want to "roam", you'll need to set it back to "auto" or "any".

Well, I really don't know how to do that with wpa_supplicant. Plus, I need to say I'm actually using Kubuntu, and I've tried using KWifiManager to select my network, but eventually I get kicked back to "default", so it's something inherent in the way the system works.

From a command-line, as root, issue the command:

iwconfig

What does it say your ESSID is? If it's not what you want, try:

iwconfig wlan0 essid some_essid

Of course, replace "some_essid" with the name of your wireless network.