Wireless frustrations. So close, so far...

[Mad_Jester]

I have a new laptop (Alienware 7700, Sager 9860, Voodoo M:790, Prostar 9096, MTech 900T, etc. {they are all the same platform}). It came with an intergrated wireless card:

# lspci
0000:0a:05.0 Ethernet controller: Linksys, A Division of Cisco Systems [AirConn] INPROCOMM IPN 2220 Wireless LAN Adapter (rev 01)
Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 6855
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 17
I/O ports at 44c0
Memory at b3004c00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32]
Memory at b3006800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

I installed the ndiswrapper with the windows driver for IPN 2220, now the device shows up in iwconfig:

# iwconfig
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:off/any Nickname:"HOMENET"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:2.437 GHz Cell: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Tx-Power:0 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:56/154 Noise level:0/154
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

However, I cannot connect to any wireless networks. I generally can't even see them:
# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 No scan results

Trying to restart the interface produces produces this output:
* Starting wlan0
* Loading networking modules for wlan0
* modules: iwconfig essidnet iptunnel ifconfig adsl dhcpcd apipa
* iwconfig provides wireless
* ifconfig provides interface
* dhcpcd provides dhcp
* Configuring wireless network for wlan0
* wlan0 connected to "HOMENET" at 00:00:00:00:00:00
* in ad-hoc mode (WEP disabled)
* Configuring wlan0 for "HOMENET" ... [ ok ]
* Bringing up wlan0
* Configuration not set for wlan0 - assuming dhcp
* dhcp
* Running dhcpcd ... [ !! ]

I have tried many config variations without success. Currently I have no security set on my wireless net while troubleshooting, though I have tried different keys. Here are the contents of my /etc/conf.d/wireless file:

essid_wlan0="HOMENET"
mode_wlan0="ad-hoc"
channel_wlan0="6"
sleep_scan_wlan0="1"
adhoc_essid_wlan0="HOMENET"
scan_mode_wlan0="ad-hoc"

Can someone please help me out here? I am running out of options.

[Mad_Jester]

I lied. I will see the network on a scan when I don't screw up. Still can't connect though.

# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:0F:B5:69:62:72
ESSID:"HOMENET"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-56 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0