To avoid booting delay while DHCP tries to get an IP address, I decided to use a static address for the wlan0 interface.
I tried this: auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet static address 192.168.1.124 gateway 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 wireless-mode managed wpa-ssid XXX wap-psk XXX This produces the error: Failed to bring up wlan0. The IP address is what wlan0 was given before by DHCP, although it seems sometimes a different address was assigned. In any case, neither work. Should I also have done something with my router? I don't want to upset the dynamic assignment for other machines and disks. The wicd Preferences I also set up for static IP address. However, the check box before the Key field is not checked, for apparently it wasn't necessary. Haines Brown