wireless mysteriously stopped working! helppp!

[abir]

I have posted here before asking how to set up wireless on my laptop. Everything has been working fine since. I installed the firmware for my card etc etc etc.
I turn on my laptop today, go through my usual routine to connect wirelessly (which i have been meaning to put into a script) -
$iwconfig eth2 essid <ssid>
$iwconfig eth2 key <wep key>
$iwconfig eth2 ap any
$dhclient eth2
It seems to get an IP address and work as usual although dhclient whines "unknown hardware address type" and i am unable to get connectivity. I just don't get it. It was such a hassle setting up wireless and now it just mysteriously stops working.
I can't even just plug in and get wired connectivity I don't think.
I have been using Mandriva for less than a month on my new Dell laptop.

I am so ready to go back to windows though. I am really trying to love linux but it is not easy when it keeps making things so hard.

How do I troubleshoot this?
Please help.

- abir

[abir]

I can't get any internet access at all on the laptop that was previously connecting up just fine (within the last week).

[sl0play]

I wish I knew what it is, but before you go running back to windows, you should really take a look at other distro's that might work better with your hardware. I have a spankin new HP laptop, and am running Ubuntu. I have had nothing but problems in the past with other debian installs, and rpm based flavors. Considering the lack of billions of dollars going into *nix i'm impressed.

In the meanwhile, as I get the hang of it all, i still dual boot with winxp so if I have any problems I dont go crazy over it. I share a vfat drive between the two systems so I can access all my data from either of them.