I've tried for the past year to get wireless in Linux working w/out timeouts or dropped packets. Finegan has tried to help me patiently but I just never got things working. I tried SUE 8.0, Redhat 8.0 and 7.3, Mandrake 8.1 8.2 9.0, and Libranet 2.7. Finally after subscribing to the Linux Dell laptops group, I found this:http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/2318
Just follow the instructions.... I've never seen faster wireless connectivity on my home network. Rock solid kernel upgrade through up2date. It used to only get to 40% and time out. There are no problems to speak of w/ my wireless now. I'll just concentrate on getting I8kutils to work and contemplating getting rid of this RPM based crap and switching over to Libranet