Comment 6 for bug 63664

Same problem here; have my /etc/network/interfaces setup properly, but... Link not ready. If I do iwlist scan; it doesn't support scanning. When I do: iwconfig eth1 essid myessid, it becomes ready, and was able to connect, but at the moment, dhclient times out.
When I do: sudo iwconfig eth1 channel 11, it gives me:
Error for wireless request "Set Frequency" (8B04) :
    SET failed on device eth1 ; Operation not permitted.
Hope this helps; if I can do more debugging ( read: spell out what you want me to do:-) please say so.

peter