How to set up WPA wireless networking

[Daniel Schepler <schepler@math.unipd.it>]

First of all, I haven't really been able to find a good reference for how to 
set up wireless networking and wpasupplicant on Debian, so if there's 
something obvious out there that I've missed, I would be glad for pointers.

So on to the meat: I have been unable to get a consistently working 
configuration for my ipw2200 card, on Debian sid running 2.6.18. I only have 
one wireless network I ever want to connect to, so my current setup 
in /etc/network/interfaces is:

...
auto eth0 eth1 eth2
mapping eth0 eth1 eth2
    script /root/get-mac-address.sh
    map 00:03:0D:21:5C:2E ethernet
    map 00-03-0D-00-25-51-D8-36-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00 ieee
    map 00:0E:35:AF:45:A6 wireless
...
iface ethernet inet dhcp
...
iface ieee inet manual
...
iface wireless inet dhcp
        wpa-ap-scan 1
        wpa-scan-ssid 1
        wpa-driver wext
        wpa-ssid linksys_***
        wpa-psk ***

Strangely, this occasionally works, but usually I get a failure to connect. 
So, what's wrong with this setup, and what do I need to do to get it working 
consistently?

Please reply to me directly, as I'm not subscribed to the list.
-- 
Daniel Schepler