wireless from the command line

[Daniel Dalton <d.dalton@iinet.net.au>]

Hi, 

I've had a good look around and still can't work this one out. Does
anyone know how to configure wifi from the command line? I'm currently
using wicd, so all my hardware is supported, however, as I rarely start
X I would prefer to manage wifi connections through the cli.

I believe I have to use wpasupplicant. Can someone point me to a howto
that gives me a few examples of the wpasupplicant config and interfacing
it with /etc/network/interfaces.

I would like my setup to automatically connect to open networks. It
should connect to the one with the strongest signal. If that fails then
it should connect to any wpa networks if they are in range. I would like
some examples, so I can learn how to tweak the config quickly.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm using the asus eeepc 1008ha and
debian squeeze if that matters.

Cheers,
Dan