OP here posting back the solution to my problem - actually the solution came from the blog entry below and basically uses the Mandriva config files instead of the PCLOS files to establish the wireless connection. The solution that worked for me was to download the Mandriva live CD and boot from this - I was able to connect immediately to the WPA2 router. I copied the following files created by the Mandrive live CD and replaced the PCLOS versions with the Mandriva versions:
- etc/sysconfig/betwork-scripts/wireless.d/mylocation (mylocation is the name assigned by the router during the config process)
- etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
- etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg_wlan0
Once I copied these files over (after renaming the previous versions as fname.old) I was able to connect to my WPA2 network. I also compared the contents of the files with the original PCLOS versions and noted the following minor differences (which may explain why the PCLOS versions were failing)
- etc/sysconfig/betwork-scripts/wireless.d/mylocation - Mandriva files uses: set ACCOUNTING=no; PCLOS file uses ACCOUNTING=yes
- etc/wpa_supplicant.conf (in the network config section PCLOS files contains entry 'auth-alg=SHARED) - this is missing from the Mandriva file version
- etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg_wlan0 (PCLOS and Mandriva versions of these files matched)
To wrap this up I'll restate that the original problem was failure to connect to a WPA2 encrypted network - while everything looked good during the setup I was getting a 'Connection Failed' message, but no other logs/error messages. Replacing the PCLOS generated confilg files wiith their Mandriva counterparts resolved the problem.
My laptop hardware is an IBM Thinkpad T60p in case that matters.
Hopefully this info may help someone else in the future.
Patrick
BTW - this problem/solution was documented elsewhere - here's a link:
http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/finding-the-right-distro-for-my-thinkpad-followup/
