I use Debian Sarge (stable) on a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo L7300 and I cannot get WiFi to work.

Kernel
uname -srv:
Linux 2.6.8-2-386 #1 Thu May 19 17:40:50 JST 2005

I did the install according to the howto's and the driver seems to work because I can scan access points, including my own:

iwlist ra0 scan:
ra0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:C0:49:F0:7E:F8
Mode:Managed
ESSID:"DSP"
Encryption keyn
Channel:7
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-31 dBm Noise level:-206 dBm
Cell 02 - Address: 00:04:E2:A6:A6:A2
Mode:Managed
ESSID:"Dreamer"
Encryption keyn
Channel:3
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-85 dBm Noise level:-206 dBm
Cell 03 - Address: 00:12:17D:39:2F
Mode:Managed
ESSID:"Staza"
Encryption keyn
Channel:11
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-80 dBm Noise level:-206 dBm

In the interface file I has the next settings:

cat /etc/network/interfaces:
auto ra0
iface ra0 inet dhcp
pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
pre-up iwconfig ra0 mode managed
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=TKIP
pre-up iwconfig ra0 essid dsp
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK="myKey"

iwconfig ra0:
ra0 RT2500 Wireless ESSID:"dsp"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412 GHz Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality=0/100 Signal level=-120 dBm Noise level:-206 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

ifconfig ra0:
ra0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A5:03F:A1
inet6 addr: fe80::214:a5ff:fe03:dfa1/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:549696 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:23636928 (22.5 MiB)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xa000

So everything seems to work, but I cannot get an IP from the router (U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg Router (USR5461))

ifup ra0:
Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client 2.0pl5
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
All rights reserved.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html

sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
Listening on LPF/ra0/00:14:a5:03:df:a1
Sending on LPF/ra0/00:14:a5:03:df:a1
Sending on Socket/fallback/fallback-net
DHCPDISCOVER on ra0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 6
DHCPDISCOVER on ra0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
DHCPDISCOVER on ra0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 16
DHCPDISCOVER on ra0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 18
DHCPDISCOVER on ra0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database.

Exiting.

Failed to bring up ra0.

I do not understand the sit0 message.

The WiFi card worked on Win XP that was supplied with the notebook...

Does it work without encryption? Can you grab a static IP? Can you associate to other networks?

Try some of those things. My guess is the router isn't running a dhcp server, considering everything else seems to be working.

Thanks for your replay six6.

DHCP on the router works because I can go to the internet when I boot with Win XP (the notebook is a dual boot system, but only for the MSN webcam...).

I wil try to connect without encryption with Debian Sarge. If that works, it must be the WPA-PSK part...

WPA-PSK still does not work, but I managed to get a connection by WEP (with MAC filtering on the router). It is not the most secure option, but for now it is ok.

Settings in /etc/network/interface:

iface ra0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid myessid
wireless-key s:mykey
auto ra0

I think the s: did the job...

Glad to hear it works

Maybe the s: made it work, or maybe not (mine works with WEP without s:).

Anyway, I have yet to use WPA-PSK because NetworkManager doesn't do it without wpa_supplicant (though it will soon). If you're still worried about computer->wap security, tunnel everything through ssh . If you're worried about unauthorized individuals on your network right now, set up a Radius authentication server. I think the Linksys wrt54g can do this with a firmware upgrade (to a openwrt [openwrt.org]). Otherwise, wait for better wpa integration