[vox-tech] Wireless wonders - iwconfig (device) essid (ESSID) not registering

[Richard Burkhart]

Yesterday evening I (and a number of other people at the Saturday 
installfest) wrestled the dread ndiswrapper demons and got broadcom 
wireless cards operational ... notice how I said it was operational 
*yesterday*.  I can't get the bloody thing online now.

How I got online yesterday, after assembling ndiswrapper, and attaching 
the windows driver:
 - disable (rmmod) the linux native broadcom driver (bcm43xx -- it 
didn't work)
 - modprobe ndiswrapper
 - iwconfig eth2 essid (essid of router at yesterday's IF)
 - ifconfig eth2 up (if it wasn't already)
 - dhclient eth2

Today:
 - disable native driver (tried both rmmod (driver) and putting the 
driver name into the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file)
 - iwconfig eth2 essid "multi word name" key "key"
 - ifconfig eth2 up (if it wasn't already)
 - dhclient eth2 (or ifup eth2 - I'd already filled the config data into 
/etc/network/interfaces)

Symptoms / issues
 - The dhcp request (dhclient) didn't work ... it tries several times, 
then shuts down
 - When I request a list from 'iwconfig eth2'
       - The key is in the interface info list
       - The essid is NOT in the list -- and doesn't show up no matter 
how many times I enter it, or if I try to enter a different single-word 
essid as a test
 - The card is working.  I can scan local access points with iwlist 
eth2, and pull data on the nearest two.  One of these is the household 
router that's 5 feet away from me on the other side of a wall.

Suggestions, anyone?