When I do iwconfig wlan0 essid <blah> key s:<password> I get:

Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device ath0 ; Invalid argument.

It works perfectly on non-encrypted non-passworded free access points. But can't connect to the internet if I need a password. What's the magic word I need to get on the internet?

I have an Acer Laptop with a default Slackware 13.1 setup. There's nothing in syslog or messages or dmesg that is relevant. I know this has been asked many times before but none of the searches I have done have produced an answer that works. All that I can figure is that I have to modprobe something or other, but I have no idea what.

as Pat said today and for the last few years install wicd from the /extra and use it. if command line use the wicd ncurses interface.

1 members found this post helpful.

What's a good howto for wicd? Google has failed me. They all seem to assume that I use Gnome and ubuntu, but I use neither.

Thanks.