It all started with Puppy Linux 5.2. I setup a LiveCD and jumped in to get familiar with it. I had some trouble with connectivity. I eventually got around to trying my linksys Wireless-G dongle. This showed some promise although I was unable to find the correct Puppy driver for the dongle and eventually removed the Wireless-G and shelved that project. Later on, I tried to log on with Fedora and found that NetworkManager was now unusable. Okay, after fiddling around with it for a while, I did a complete reinstall of Fedora (including reformatting the disk) and low-and-behold NetworkManager still doesn't work. I would have thought the Fedora reinstall would have installed the correct driver but apparently it didn't. I am able to send this because I have plugged the Wireless-G back in. (aargh!) Has anyone ever seen this sort of thing?
Actually, the easier way is to do the following:
yum reinstall NetworkManager*
and it will replace the existing NetworkManager.
I actually don't understand the issue you are facing. Your machine has some OS installed in the harddisk or are you working entirely off of a liveCD?
Harish