Hi,

A few days ago I installed Kubuntu 5.10 on my computer and set it up to dual boot with Windows XP. During the installation process it automatically found the wireless network at my parents house, and I was able to connect to the internet just fine there. When I took it back to my house, though, it won't automatically connect to the network there. Using KwifiManager I can use the "Scan For Networks" button to find the network I want, but if I select it and click OK, nothing happens. I've been trying to find a way to get KwifiManager to connect to this network but I've come up with nothing so far, and the manual it comes with isn't that helpful. Can anyone help?

1. Using "lsmod", check if the wireless kernel module exists.
2. using "iwlist scan" check if you can see the AP.and
3. Using "ifconfig" check whether the wireless inteface has an IP address.
4. Check the encryption settings on you interface and make sure that they match your router.

The first items were done when you initially installed wireless at your parents, but if something wasn't saved properly, then perhaps after a reboot something is missing. For example, if you use "ndiswrapper" you may have forgotten to run "sudo /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -m" to update the /etc/modprobe.conf alias for the device. Perhaps when the wireless was installed, a "depmod -a" command was aborted.

When I set up my wireless device on the laptop, two other packages were installed. wireless-tools and
wpa_supplicant. The wireless-tools package (your system may be different) supplies the iwlist, iwconfig commands along with others.

If the "iwlist scan" command responds with data on wireless networks, then the device is probably working, and you need to concentrate on the wireless device network configuration and authentication.

Make sure to check things from the bottom up. Because, if you don' have a driver loaded, for example, you will not be able to authenticate even if the networking is configured properly. You won't even get an IP address via DHCP until you can authenticate.

If you can connect to your router directly, and access it's configuration web page, you can use cut and paste to copy the key to your configuration. A 64 bit hex key can be difficult to type in correctly..

I use kinternet instead of kwifimanager.

There is one thing to try if you also have an regular NIC interface. Shut it down and restart the wireless. I think, on your system, the commands would be:
"sudo /sbin/service eth0 stop"
"sudo /sbin/service wlan0 restart"

I'm not certain on where the service command is located, and your wireless device might me called something different such as "eth1". If this is successful, and "/sbin/ifconfig" shows your wireless device has an IP address, then you might try changing the configuration of the NIC interface (eth0) to start on hotplug. There probably is an option for this in your GUI configuration.