kwlan can't start wpa_supplicant

[pwabrahams]

I've had no success in getting wireless networking to work on my laptop (it's fine under Windows) so I decided to try kwlan. But after starting the configuration process I get the message

kwlan was unable to start wpa_supplicant
This may be caused by system misconfiguration, e.g.,
absence of the utility called or incorrect parameters passed.

Now wpa_supplicant is there, and I even can call it explicitly. But I have no idea what parameters kwlan is trying to give it.

In addition, kwlan takes a very long time to do everything, even displaying the next screen, when it's working on the wireless interface wlan1. The documentation on kwlan is sketchy at best.

Any advice?