thanks for your reply,

dmesg doesn't give any error messages regarding usb (only hd errors, related to a queue)

when i run usbview i don't see it, in fact when i execute usbview from the shell it gives me an error message saying it
cannnot openfile /proc/bus/usb/devices
verify that you have USB compiled in your kernel, have USB core modules loaded, and have the usb devfs file system mounted.
So i guess i have to get that fixed also, but i don't think that's the only problem, because I tried booting from the cd again and it recognized the adapter in usbview, but the dsl configuration tool gave me the same error.

I had done a search on google but i wasn't very successful, only thing i found out remotely useful is a review on the adapter (about a year old) saying linux support wasn't yet possible, but should be in the future (as in now ) since it uses the same chip as many other wireless devices (forgot the name). Good suggesstion though.