Wireless laptop configuration problem

[William Chapman]

Hello!

I have an old, Gateway Solo 9300 notebook (450 MHz Pentium 3) with a
fresh (today!) Hoary installation.  Ubuntu is doing great except for
the wireless internet connection.  Here is the setup:

(1)  There is a NAT broadband, wireless router in the picture;

(2)  There is a built-in 10/100 Ethernet port which apparently works
fine (eth0) (connected to wired port in NAT router);

(3)  There is a PCMCIA Netgear wireless card in the laptop which
appears to be configured correctly (ath0), but cannot be made to talk
on the LAN (more info below);

(4)  With both interfaces (eth0 & ath0) configured and activated, the
System->Administration->Networking control panel wants to select eth0
as the "Default Gateway;" if I change this to ath0, it does not
complain, but the change is apparently not made (see (5) below);  I
think this is an important clue;

(5) Anytime eth0 is configured and active (as indicated in control
panel), "route -n" shows the following:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U        0        0   
    0    eth0
0.0.0.0             192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0               UG     0       
0        0     eth0

This is true regardless of the state of ath0.

(5)  If eth0 is deactivated (button push in panel) or the "is
configured" check box is cleared (on panel), and then ath0 is set to
the default gateway (via the selection button), "route -n" reveals a
blank table, despite that fact that ath0 was set to the default
gateway in the control panel.

(6)  During the entire investigation, the Network Monitor tool (small
Gnome tool for panel - looks like the similar Windows tool - two
overlapping displays that light up) for ath0 shows that the card is
connected, that the signal strength is good (>85%), and that the WEP
and MAC address limitations set in the router are being satisfied. 
because the card shows the correct flashing green leds (steady, in
unison) indicating a good connection with the access point.  The ssid
and wep numbers are entered correctly.

(BTW, to enter the WEP key as an ascii string (which is ten hex
characters), I had to do "s:xxxxxxxxxx" where the x's are ten hex
characters.  The need to enter "s:" as a header is not obvious!!)

(5)  The Applications->System Tools->Network Tools GUI reveals that it
knows nothing about ath0's MAC address, even though this is shown
correctly on the Network Monitor tool.

(6)  With eth0 (wired) deactivated, attempting to ping with Network
Tools shows that nothing is even being sent.  The system is totally
ignoring the command.  If eth0 is active, pings go out his port; I
can't get pings to go out ath0 (wireless) even though the
configuration and connections seem ok.

(7)  The correct wireless ID and WEP key are entered; DHCP is
selected, and the gateway address is 192.168.0.1 (the NAT router). 
This approach has has always worked flawlessly with my setup,
including wireless under WinXP.

What's going on?  It seems like Linux doesn't really want to, or
can't, consider the wireless card as a means to get to the internet.

Any help will be appreciated!!

Bill Chapman