Pls post the output of lspci, lsmod, lsusb with your hardware plugin... 
Having worked with this Compaq Evo laptop a bit, it seems to be getting better! I'm using a Cisco Aironet AIR-PI21AG-E-K9 adapter. When this was used in another laptop running Windoze XP, the green Status and orange Activity lights would flash alternately while the system was booting, but would start to flash together once the internet connection was made.
On this VL6.0 system, the adapter behaves differently. It will occasionally flash the green Status light while booting, and will then not connect properly. If, during the booting process, I detach the adapter briefly and then insert it again, the green Status light (only) comes on constantly, and the system will initiate an internet connection, including WAP encryption, successfully. The orange Activity light does not come on at all when used on this VL6.0 system.
Sometimes, the adapter will turn on its green Status light while the system boots without any help from me, and connects to the internet fine.
So maybe there's some kind of connection issue on a hardware level. I don't mind the workaround for the moment.
With the system running and connected, the output of command lspci is:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to AGP Controller (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6933/711E1 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller (rev 01)
02:06.1 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6933/711E1 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller (rev 01)
02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212/AR5213 Multiprotocol MAC/baseband processor (rev 01)
The output of command lsmod is:
Module Size Used by
ndiswrapper 185372 0
snd_seq_dummy 3716 0
snd_seq_oss 31872 0
snd_seq_midi_event 6912 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 48368 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 7436 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 37408 0
snd_mixer_oss 15104 1 snd_pcm_oss
speedstep_lib 4740 0
acpi_cpufreq 7948 0
freq_table 4352 1 acpi_cpufreq
arc4 2688 2
ecb 3584 2
crypto_blkcipher 16516 1 ecb
irtty_sir 5888 0
cryptomgr 3712 0
sir_dev 11780 1 irtty_sir
rtc_cmos 10144 0
irda 108984 1 sir_dev
rtc_core 15132 1 rtc_cmos
crc_ccitt 2688 1 irda
ath5k 119048 0
rtc_lib 3328 1 rtc_core
snd_intel8x0 29980 2
snd_ac97_codec 99492 1 snd_intel8x0
tg3 119940 0
ac97_bus 2432 1 snd_ac97_codec
mac80211 155548 1 ath5k
led_class 4484 1 ath5k
libphy 16640 1 tg3
snd_pcm 67972 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
cfg80211 23688 2 ath5k,mac80211
serio_raw 6020 0
snd_timer 19976 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
i2c_i801 9616 0
snd 51492 14 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
i2c_core 21268 1 i2c_i801
soundcore 7008 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 8840 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
iTCO_wdt 10916 0
shpchp 29716 0
pci_hotplug 27040 1 shpchp
parport_pc 35908 0
parport 31724 1 parport_pc
video 17040 0
output 3456 1 video
wmi 6568 0
joydev 10048 0
evdev 10144 6
The output of command lsusb is:
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
The ndiswrapper module was installed because I was going to try using the Netgear usb adapter I had on another machine, but this is not now connected.
The Wicd Network Manager reports 'No Connection', even when it's all working fine.