Comment 8 for bug 79296

I've just run into this under Feisty as well. After having read somewhere on the net that someone got it to work with ndiswrapper I have tried that, too, but failed. I believe to have set everything back as it was and would be delighted if we could go through this and see if we can get it fixed once, for all, for everybody. If you insist, I'll reinstall Feisty and start from a clean sheet.

> iwconfig reports:
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

ra0 RT2500 Wireless ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412 GHz Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Tx-Power:0 dBm
          RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality=0/100 Signal level=-120 dBm Noise level:-200 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

> iwlist ra0 scan
ra0 Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:16:CE:8B:DA:8D
                    Mode:Managed
                    ESSID:"techconcierge.co.uk"
                    Encryption key:on
                    Channel:1
                    Quality:0/100 Signal level:-74 dBm Noise level:-200 dBm
          Cell 02 - Address: 00:16:CF:2D:80:B1
                    Mode:Managed
                    ESSID:"Livebox-3D00"
                    Encryption key:on
                    Channel:1
                    Quality:0/100 Signal level:-77 dBm Noise level:-199 dBm
          Cell 03 - Address: 00:0F:3D:A6:85:B2
                    Mode:Managed
                    ESSID:"G604T_WIRELESS"
                    Encryption key:off
                    Channel:11
                    Quality:0/100 Signal level:-27 dBm Noise level:-200 dBm
          Cell 04 - Address: 00:01:38:8D:E8:E1
                    Mode:Managed
                    ESSID:"zoom"
                    Encryption key:on
                    Channel:10
                    Quality:0/100 Signal level:-88 dBm Noise level:-197 dBm

Which is interesting, so it does work to some extent.

I haven't knowingly done anything to /etc/network/interfaces:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

auto eth2
iface eth2 inet dhcp

auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp

When I remove the card from the computer and put it back in, nothing happens (no lights on), when I do it a second time, the lights come on and /var/log/daemon.log reports:
Jun 23 02:38:58 ouattara NetworkManager: <debug info>^I[1182562738.301779] nm_hal_device_added (): New device added (hal udi is '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_1814_201').
Jun 23 02:38:58 ouattara NetworkManager: <debug info>^I[1182562738.365347] nm_hal_device_added (): New device added (hal udi is '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_13_d3_82_66_96').
Jun 23 02:38:58 ouattara NetworkManager: <information>^Ira0: Device is fully-supported using driver 'rt2500'.
Jun 23 02:38:58 ouattara NetworkManager: <information>^Inm_device_init(): waiting for device's worker thread to start
Jun 23 02:38:58 ouattara NetworkManager: <information>^Inm_device_init(): device's worker thread started, continuing.
Jun 23 02:38:58 ouattara NetworkManager: <information>^INow managing wireless (802.11) device 'ra0'.
Jun 23 02:38:58 ouattara NetworkManager: <information>^IDeactivating device ra0.