Trouble connecting to my wireless network

[unckybob]

I am having some trouble getting my computer to connect to my wireless network.

I am running Ubuntu Linux 10.4.

There is a wireless icon in the system tray. When I click on the icon I get a list of SSIDs associated with available wireless networks. To connect to one of of those networks I move the cursor over the SSID, the SSID is then highlighted, I select the highlighted SSID, then my computer connects to the selected network.

Sometimes the SSID associated wth my wireless network does not show up on the list. Sometimes it does.

Normally the SSIDs on the list are in bold lettering. When the SSID of my network does appear it is in shaded lettering. When I move the cursor over the SSID it is not highlighted and I cannot select it. So you see it is not possible for me to select the SSID of my network and connect to my network.

The computer I am running is a ThinkPad R40.

This is the wireless controller on the computer. I got this with "lspci".

02:02.0 Network controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b

Can Someone please help?

[unckybob]

The strange thing is that I can connect to my wireless network using my Windows 7 partition.

[RealBlackStuff]

Running W7 on an R40? Unlikely, but who knows...
Dump that ancient wifi card for something newer, such as an Intel 2200BG.

[unckybob]

Is the problem that this is an old card and that Ubuntu 10.4 doesn't have a driver for it?

Is it possible to find out if Ubuntu has a driver for it?

If there is no driver for my present card, can I be confident one of these "Intel 2200BG" wifi cards will work out of the box with Ubuntu?

There are a number of these Intel cards for sale on eBay. Here's one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Intel-PRO-Wirel ... 20b831a338

Can I be sure that this will work with my R40 with Ubuntu?

[ajkula66]

Intel 2200BG will work, but you'll likely have to apply the "no-1802" BIOS hack on that R40.

Atheros-chipped IBM cards will work even better in any Linux distro.

[jronald]

I have tried a few of the unnamed wifi cards on uBuntu and never succeeded. I just gave up and slapped the 2200bg card in and it worked.
Here is about the cheapest 2200 card I could find
http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-VGN-FS630-FS66 ... 3a64d85030
Here is the hack you will need to run (probably)
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_w ... twork_card
Here is an official 2200 IBM card that you probably will not need to hack
http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-Intel- ... 19b4cfe34d

Notice I said probably twice!
I have NON-IBM cards that work without the hack I think they were Gateways.
But then I have IBM cards, in earlier IBMs that I have needed to install the hack to get them to work. The Bios's did not like them and I was not interested in scrounging enough cards to find one that would work. They are out there, but its not worth the trouble.

Ron