[Hampshire] Wireless networking on dapper

Hi all,

I have a RaLink (Belkin) wireless NIC (ra0) in my box, and I have it
all set up to work with WPA, using TKIP (I gather AES doesn't quite
work yet).

Here is the rub: If I have auto ra0 in my /etc/network/interfaces,
then the machine will boot up, but the desktop is unusable, and the
CLI is pretty much useless too.

If I boot up without auto ra0, then the system works fine, but there
is no network connection available. If I try to bring the ra0
interface up:

$ sudo ifup ra0
failed to bring up ra0

then system becomes unusable as above.

However, if I use the ubuntu menu to setup the interface
(System>Administration>Networking), select ra0, click on properties,
select myssid from the drop down, OK the property change, then OK out
of Networking.

$ sudo ifup ra0

Then I get the dhcp client running happily, grabbing a lease from the
router, and wireless networking is up and running.

/etc/network/interfaces:

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
name Ethernet LAN card

iface ra0 inet dhcp
pre-up iwconfig ra0 essid MYSSID
pre-up iwconfig ra0 mode managed
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set Channel=8
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=TKIP
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK="mykey"
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set TxRate=0

Anyone else with similar experiences/fixes?

Cheers,
Chris