Wireless networking in Debian

[George <pinkisntwell@gmail.com>]

I have a Compaq CQ60 laptop running squeeze, and I have never gotten
wireless networking to work. My chipset appears to be supported,
however wicd never detects any networks in the area (even though there
are several) and nm-tool reports "State: unavailable" for the network
adapter.

I know that I'm not providing all the information, but I don't really
know where to start.

Any help appreciated, especially from people running a similar laptop.
It seems to be pretty popular.