Half a Page of Scribbled Linux

Of course WiFi didn’t work. It never works. My configuration had two entries for each of my Ethernet and Wireless Ethernet cards and the firewall complained eth0 was part of the internal and external zones. The latter I fixed by editing /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2. The former I fixed with Yast2/Network Devices/Network Settings. I banged my head against the wall trying to get the key accepted until, on the wireless key page, I clicked WEP keys (even though there was a field for the WEP key there). On this screen, I was able to set the key length from 128 to 64 and then it worked. I still have the horrible name for the wireless interface of wlan0_rename_re, but at least it works.
Update: I spoke too soon. This morning, my wife started the laptop and it didn’t connect to the network. So I messed with it and noticed the interface names are normal again–wlan0 and eth0. I tried traditional (ifup) connections and couldn’t get them to work. After switching to NetworkManager, suddenly it connected. I still have no idea why this didn’t work before or why it started working. But inspiring confidence is why you read this blog, eh?
Update 2: The only application that will get NetworkManager to connect is nm-applet, the Gnome client. It seems to recognize that my WEP key is a 40-bit, not 64 or 128 bit. The KDE clients all fail to connect. NetworkManager will only connect if I run nm-applet, even though I set up the connection as root. More investigation is necessary.