My desktop is running fedora 7, and I've recently gone wireless. I have a Linksys WUSB54GC wireless USB adapter, but it doesn't get recognized by default. Any tips?

What does "lsusb" say?

and do you get any devices in "iwconfig"?

You could use ndiswrapper to install the appropiate windows driver.
Also .. there are different chipsets around for these cards.

lsusb:
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c03d Logitech, Inc.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 004: ID 13b1:0020 Linksys
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 058f:9360 Alcor Micro Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

iwconfig:
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key: off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

About a year ago, I got that particular adapter to work in FC6 using this tutorial:

It's been running ever since, but I haven't upgraded to F7 because I didn't want to go through all the steps again (the same applies to upgrading the kernel.)

Because the tutorial applies to Ubuntu, iirc, there are a couple of things that either didn't apply to Fedora, or had to be done slightly differently, or the terminology is slightly different. Sorry I can't quite recall what those things were, but if you give it a shot and run into difficulties, post back here and I will do my best to help you out.

cheers,

That's a very handy guide! I've completed step 5 so far without any problems. But step 6:
gksudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
there is no network dir in /etc in my fedora installation... there is a NetworkManager dir, but that too is empty...

sudo gedit /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-rausb0
(assuming that rausb0 is what the interface is called...)

That file already contained the following:
-------------
DEVICE=rausb0
ONBOOT=yes

## Confirm your AP supports dhcp or connects up the ethernet
## before set-up as a dynamic IP
#BOOTPROTO=dhcp
-------------
I've tried to add the suggested text to it (but perhaps I shouldve' deleted the original text?), but it didn't work:
-------------
# rt73 wireless network device using DHCP
iface rausb0 inet dhcp
pre-up ifconfig rausb0 up
wireless-essid MY_ESSID
# wireless-key XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX # This line for hexidecimal keys
wireless-key s:<inserted my wireless key> # This line for ASCII (string) keys
auto rausb0
-------------

See if you can get it working without the key, first. Here's my config:
if that works, then you can try it with a key. Personally, I don't use a key. I don't broadcast the ssid, and I use mac filtering on the router. I can't say for certain whether I've tried it with a key, but probably not.

Mmm, it's starting to work... after restarting the computer the rt73 module wasn't installed anymore so I did a new make clean | make | make install and then modprobe rt73 worked again.

When using ifdown/ifup, the green light on the usb wireless is finally activated.
----------
iwconfig:
rausb0 RT73 WLAN ESSIDff/any Nickname:"localhost.localdomain"
Mode:Auto Channel=1 Bit Rate=54 Mb/s
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
------------

# ifdown rausb0
# ifup rausb0

With these settings, ifup doesn't give any more errors but there is still no connection. What's weird is that the ESSID is mentioned as off/any, whereas I've set it in the config file. The mac address is correct, the channel number as well. I've tried usign DHCP but that was no success either.

Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 rausb0
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 rausb0
0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 rausb0

It may sound dumb, but for the longest time I'd often have to physically plug/unplug the adapter, sometimes several times, before it would pick up a connection. I don't have to do it as often, nowadays, but occasionally I do.

In other words, if you haven't already realized, it can be finicky.

So, give that a shot.

Once connected, it would also occasionally and inexplicably drop the connection. I run a script using cron to poll for a connection and if there isn't one, then to reconnect, and I assume it's working because I haven't had any ongoing issues with connectivity lately.

cheers,