8. Checking things in case they don't work

1. Be sure to type

ifconfig

You should something like this

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:25:A8:AE:64
          inet addr:192.168.1.104  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:35197 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:57676 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:43386657 (41.3 MiB)  TX bytes:2670811 (2.5 MiB)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

The keys point here are that inet addr: has a real IP address, and that Bcast and Netmask are set up such that they are on the same "wave-length" as your Wireless Access Point.

2. If you don't, you might have had the same problem i did which was that there was no easy script to initiate the wlan0 device setup. That is to say, if the card was recognized but you still did not get a connection and say that ifconfig showed wlan0 present but with no IP address. In other words, you might see something like this:

text:/home/dude# ifconfig

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:700 (700.0 b)  TX bytes:700 (700.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:25:A8:AE:64
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:46 (46.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

As you can see, the interface device, the Wireless pcmcia card, is noted, but there is no inet addr . The pcmcia software recognized the card, but it has not successfully connected with the Wireless Access Point.

I used the command, pump to send a simple DHCP request to the DHCP server for the device in question. I used

pump -i wlan0

You can get the pump by

apt-get install pump

While I needed to use

pump -i wlan0