I recently set up a friend of mine with Xubuntu, since he's lost his windows disc and his Dell key doesn't seem to work with mine. He usually connects to a wireless network with a usb wireless adapter that Ubuntu seems to detect perfectly. However, whenever I bring the system up, running ifconfig reveals that rausb0 (the wireless interface) is somehow getting an IPv6 address.

I've tried disabling IPv6 but I still get a goofy address. No connection to the internet whatsoever. Any ideas on what I ought to try next? Much appreciated.

Interfaces usually get IPv6 addresses, I'm not sure why...however, the fact that it's getting an IPv6 address is not what's interesting. It's the fact that it's not getting an IPv4 address. This is probably because either you haven't entered the SSID name, or you haven't configured the encryption (WEP, WEP key etc) properly in the Network Settings applet. It could also be that you haven't configured the interface for DHCP though this usually activated by default.

I am having the same problem. I tried disabling the security on my router to see if I could connect at all without a key. I had an ipv4 address briefly but then it went away. It must have something to with the security settings. I noticed that it asks for the *key*, not the passphrase. My Linksys router shows me the key under Wireles/Wireless Security in the OEM web interface. I will keep digging and let you know if I find more clues.

I found a solution in the Ubuntu forums, ubuntuforums.org. LQ won't let me post a URL so look for a thread called "RaLink RT61 Wireless Solved". Also check your lspci output to make sure that you have the same hardware -- should say something like "Network controller: RaLink: Unknown device 0301". It takes a little mucking around and I'm not really sure how it works, but it does. Let me know how it goes. Meanwhile I'll be trying to adjust my startup scripts so I don't have to worry about it anymore.

Thanks for the tip, nbest. I'll give it a shot later today.

Update: Well, the driver didn't work for me, but that's probably because the chipset in the adaptor I'm trying to get working isn't the one that uses the mentioned driver. Turns out I need the RT73 driver. Anyway, check the Ralink opensource project site for the latest drivers.