Raspberry Pi Edimax EW-7811Un USB WiFi Adapter

So, I wanted to get my Raspberry Pi working wirelessly.  I purchased an Edimax EW-7811Un USB WiFi Adapter which proved to be tricky to configure.  Friends have had success with other cheap USB devices too, but this one works OK.  I eventually got it working, so here are some brief notes.

This is the box it came in:

This is what it looks like:

I found a really good site - there are loads more details there:

http://www.savagehomeautomation.com/projects/raspberry-pi-installing-the-edimax-ew-7811un-usb-wifi-adapte.html

If you're a complete Linux noob (like me), there are loads of interesting things to learn from that page.

This is my config.  I ONLY have config in /etc/network/interfaces - I've NOT used the wpa_supplicant.conf file.

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
wpa-ssid YOURSSIDHERE
wpa-psk YOURPASSWORDHERE
address 192.168.0.10
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.0.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.0.1

iface default inet dhcp

And that's it!  You'll need to enter the WPA details for your network - these are whatever you set in your access point (if you're not sure what I mean, you really need to go play with your router and/or access point and learn this stuff first).

The IP settings here are for a Sky router that defaults to a 192.168.0.0/24 subnet, but you can adapt these numbers for your own network.  If you're not sure what subnet your network uses, do an "ipconfig" (or ifconfig if you're linux) and figure out what's being used on a computer that's already working OK.  If you're not sure what I'm on about here, then I'd suggest Googling around IPv4 subnets first :)

Hope this helps!