Ok, Got my wireless card working and it sees the SSID broadcast. I have tested this with it being off, on, and then on without encryption and it saw the changes, so I'm fairly certain that the card is working fine.

I try and initiate the card with KNetworkManager, and it gets to 57% then asks for my passphrase again when encryption enabled, and when no encryption it goes to 28% and then dies. Something in the line of the IP Configuration.

I had wanted to get online and check for updates so I connected the laptop into my hub via ethernet and it connected fine, or so I thought, because I still can not get connected to the net even though it's reading that it's connected.

Anyone have a clue of what I can check to fix this?
thanks a ton again, hopefully I'll get this last hurdle over with and be running a mobile linux machine today

oh yea, i'm using 10.1

First, get some info on the ethernet card. From a console, issue the command 'hwinfo --netcard' (if 10.X includes the hwinfo utility, which is in 9.3). In the print to screen, look for Device File: ethX, where ethX could be eth0, eth1, or something else. That's the device that will connect to the ISP.

Assuming it's eth0, then give the command 'dhcpcd -B interface eth0' to see if that makes the connection.

I had a problem similar to yours when switching from dialup to a wireless service. The steps I outlined above is all it took to get me connected.