What exactly does xsupplicant do? A friend of mine told me that I will need it to get on the wireless network here at my school, UTD, in the apartment area. But anywhere else it isn't needed.

At the apartments, the WEP password is provided for us, but we have to log in using our ids and passwords. On campus, we just provide a WEP key and that works. I'm assuming this is part of the difference.

so my question is then, what is it that xsupplicant does, and how would I use it to get online. I'm a complete newbie to linux and don't know how to get online with wireless at all under linux.

I'm using Ubuntu 5.04 on a dell inspiron 9100 with a proxim orinoco 11a/b/g silver combo card which plugs into the pcmcia port. I can provide anymore information if needed.