Boot without the wireless hoops...

[elija]

I use the Graphical utility every time I boot...

Here is the latest info you requested

root:# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
michael_mic             3328  4 
arc4                    2816  4 
ecb                     3712  4 
blkcipher               6148  1 ecb
cryptomgr               3584  0 
ieee80211_crypt_tkip    10752  2 
ndiswrapper           186372  0 
acpi_cpufreq            7880  0 
freq_table              4768  1 acpi_cpufreq
i915                   23296  2 
drm                    74388  3 i915
snd_seq_dummy           3716  0 
snd_seq_oss            32128  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      7168  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                48720  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device          7692  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss            38048  0 
snd_mixer_oss          15232  1 snd_pcm_oss
ipw3945               194592  1 
snd_hda_intel         283040  2 
snd_pcm                69764  2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel
iTCO_wdt                9640  0 
snd_timer              19972  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
e1000                 118976  0 
snd_page_alloc          8712  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
ieee80211              31560  1 ipw3945
snd_hwdep               7812  1 snd_hda_intel
serio_raw               6276  0 
snd                    45796  14 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_hwdep
ieee80211_crypt         5504  2 ieee80211_crypt_tkip,ieee80211
intel_agp              22164  1 
agpgart                28108  3 drm,intel_agp
soundcore               7008  1 snd
shpchp                 30228  0 
pci_hotplug            28616  1 shpchp
joydev                  9152  0 
evdev                   8704  4 

root:# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
03:0b.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
03:0b.3 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller

[Dapper Dan]

As you can see from lspci, your device is an Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02). It uses driver ipw3945 which gets loaded at startup. From lsmod, both ipw3945 and ndiswrapper are present for the same device. The loading of ipw3945 might be what's causing ndiswrapper not to get loaded correctly when you boot up. See here. To make sure that's not what's happening, you could try blacklisting ipw3945, then rebooting. With your favourite editor, open as su: /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add to it:

blacklist ipw3945

Save, exit and reboot. I'm not saying this will fix your problem, but I'd try it to see. Hope it helps.

[elija]

That got the card detected at boot time. Thanks for your help in
this.

Now for the bad news. I can only get the wireless network to
connect to my router automatically if I turn encryption off!

Well OK then. At least I can use it for now...

Various bits of software I use every day just lock up all the time,
My preferred PHP editor, the MySQL GUI Tools and so on which
means that I am going back to XUbuntu for the time being as
everything I need works.

I think Vector has potential and it may be because it is so light
weight that it had these issues. I will prepare a "report" on my
experience in the hope that it helps the Vector team.

I wish I had the time to continue messing with Vector as I liked
the distro in general and it was a fun learning experience but I
have this thing called "liking to eat"