wireless connection to linksys from Inspiron laptop

[Derek Broughton]

Nigel Ridley wrote:

> I just got my Linksys WRT54GL delivered today and set it up to connect to
> a pppoe connection. The wired connection works as advertised (beware, if
> your pc/laptop is already configured with a static ip address, then you
> won't be able to connect using http://192.168.1.1 - I had to stick the
> Hardy live CD in and then it connected!!??).

What's with the ??  Of course it won't connect.  You can't have two devices
on the network with the same IP, and your WRT would need to use that static
IP address.  Of course, the simple solution would have been to just remove
all settings, and Network Manager (actually, dhclient) would have set you
up via DHCP.

> Anyway, I now want to be able to set up my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop to
> connect to the router. I installed wicd and removed KNetworkManager and
> KWlan, but wicd says that there are no wireless connections available.

So why would you uninstall the supported and (mostly) functional network
manager for an unsupported program?  I'm not saying that it's a bad idea -
I've finally got frustrated enough with NM to give wicd another try - but
if you know nothing about wireless, jumping in with unsupported software is
a really bad start.  For most users, NM works just fine.
-- 
derek