I had strange messages when I booted my computer. They looked quite bad. The dmesg output is attached.
# ifconfig up up: error fetching interface information: Device not found However, ifconfig wlan0 up did work. # ifconfig wlan0 essid ATT2G3X2z5 Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) : SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation already in progress. Ping to example.net succeeded.