wpa_supplicant.conf and various issues

[beerfan <beerfan gmail com>]

I apologize if all of my questions have been answered somewhere but
list archive search is currently not functional and google has turned
up anything useful.

I am currently using NetworkManager 0.6.2 on Ubuntu Dapper (i.e., the
latest distro package) to connect to my home AP using WPA-PSK. My NIC
is a Netgear WG511U which Ubuntu supported out of the box with madwifi
drivers. It has been working fine for a while but it takes forever to
connect after I log in and provide my keychain password (approximately
a minute).

I am getting really annoyed both with being nagged to provide my
password and with the huge delay connecting and I hope someone can
inform me how to improve the situation. It seems like configuring the
wpa_supplicant.conf file with the appropriate network parameters and
psk would resolve both issues but from other posts I've read in the
archives, network manager completely circumvents the wpa_supplicant
configuration.

Is there a way to make network manager let wpa_supplicant use its own
conf file? If not, what is the solution this? I can't believe it
really takes a minute to negotiate a WPA connection because using a
manual configured setup takes much less time.

Cheers