Networking :: Wireless tutorial for DSL

I am use to wireless with Centos.  I see much of the same porgrams, but not all.

I have a number of cards available.  I will have to support WPA, and for that I have a D-Link DWL-AG660 and a Netgear WAG511.

I also have a Proxim 8800-FC (suppose to support WPA in a Proxim AP-2000 access point).

For wide open wireless use, I have a classic Orinoco Gold. In fact I have 2 golds and 3 silvers  

Anyway, I want to find out what I need to use these cards.  I used the Orinoco Gold on an open Linksys AP with no trouble.  It came up as eth0 and got right on line  

But are these cards hot-swappable?  (this is in a Libretto 100CT running DSL 4.2.1 frugal).

How do I scan for APs?  And select the one I want in a 'crowded' airspace (ever been to a trade show when you pick up 60+ aps?).

What about wpa supplicant?  cli and gui interface?

I have had quite a lot of success with Atheros madwifi in Centos.  But things here are just different enough that I would like a few pointers (even to urls)....