I still haven't decided what to get for my system to replace the NIC with, but the card I have should be working with my existing 802.11g network already; however, it doesn't - I have had to connect my laptop via Ethernet cable to my wireless bridge to get network access.
/etc/init.d/net.wlan0 starts, but goes immediately inactive. From what I can find on-line, this seems to have been something common after moving to Base Layout 2/OpenRC; however, I couldn't find anything that specified what the actual solution was - I think most ended up doing a complete reinstall of their wicd/wpa-supplicant software - either way details were lacking. I've successfully had wpa-supplicant working in the past, and as a result of all of this I've tried to get it up through the other method too (iwconfig?), but no success. (I think I have managed to get it to scan some, but not sufficiently and certainly no connections.) Anyone see this issue and know what the solution is? I'd like to at least get my 802.11g access back - the current setup is a bit of a pain and very limiting. Thanks! Ben