alright, I know the sound of a room when a newbie comes in when I hear it, but you guys are the closest thing to a solution Ive found in my many many long hours of trying to solve this issue. I found my way to your forums googling for answers, and I think you may be able to help, given the content of the other thread pertaining to this same USB wifi adapter...Ill just come right out and say it, I dont understand the directions you give, even the laymens terms version, heh...I am COMPLETELY new to linux, and while I enjoy the prospect of the versatility the OS affords, Im a little discouraged by the massive amount of syntax required to make the bells ding and the whistles blow. let me be more specific about my problem : I also have the WUSB12 linksys compact USB wireless adapter, I used it for many months on xp, on the same laptop Ive now installed Kanotix linux on, wlan0 detects my network with the card in, or whatever one Im near, when typed into the console ( this is a cli, yes ?). however the wireless management utility just cant seem to use the signal it sees, compound this with the fact that iwconfigs dont work because it isnt supported by this adapter, a fact Im sure the participants of the previous thread know all too well...now onto my lack of understanding, let me paraphrase for a moment to help illustrate my issue:

[qoute]1)login as root
2)open up the the terminal looks like the dos window
3)cd into your directory and then use cp command to copy the wlan blah blah.tgz file to the /
4)once you get copy it cd into that directory and the tar -xvzf filename.tar.gz
5)now cd (again) in that directory
6)Once you get in there type this "make config" without quotes.. duh!
7)If you are using USB when the question that ask yes or no come up type N to the first 3 questionswe almost there guys hang on
8) now after that type "make all"
9) "make install"[/quote]

I know how to login as root, and open a cli window, however step three starts to lose me, what does cd into your directory mean ? how do you do it, and is this for live cd only ? what are cp commands, and where am I copying the .tgz files to ? step four is pretty much russian to me altogether, Im sorry but it doesent coagulate, maybe someone can translate it into a dumber version I cant get, step five would probably make more sense to me if I understood four I presume, and step six, does he mean in a cli window, or in some file ? after that I think I can make sense of it all the way through, but Id REALLY appreciate help on it, Im totally lost if you couldnt tell by my semi-cohesive ramblings. thank you graciously in advance for any assistance !