Setting up a wireless usb adapter

I have a Netgear MA 101 USB adapter hooked up to my comp for internet. I have absolutly no idea how to set it up since all the manuals talk about wireless cards (and mine is external) and I also just started using linux. If someone could help me out that would be great. O and please explain everything to me step by step.

Thanks ahead of time!

Link to my wireless usb adapter:

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/MA101.php


O and also, could someone explain to me the benefit of recompiling the kernel? I'm just curious about it :D

See this post on setting up wireless cards under linux. in your case, you will need to use ndiswrapper and the windows drivers whch can be found from one of the links int that post or the ones which came with your card.

The normal drivers open source drivers may not work with your card as you said that it is usb based, hence the reason why you need to use ndiswrapper.

The main benefit of recompiling the kernel is that it will be customised for your system, e.g I have an AMD system, if I were to configure a kernel for a K7 system, it will run marginally faster than one compiled for an i686/i586 system (Pentiums). The main advantage is obviously, it will run faster, and the big benefit comes for those running older systems e.g. Pentium 3's and below.

hope this helps, if you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask.