Why won't my iPad 2 connect to my 802.11g network?

Question

Hello everyone,
Today I received an iPad 2 as a gift.  It is the first Apple product I have ever owned.  I spent about 3 hours this morning trying to get it to turn on -- it kept displaying an image of a USB cord so I connected it to my computer.  Still the iPad would not display its desktop.  Finally, I learned that the iPad had to be connected to a PC running Windows (instead of the Centos 5 Linux system that I use).  Additionally iTunes had to be installed.  I find it extremely bizaare to require the device to connect to a computer before being able to turn it on.
Now after getting the device to boot, I am attempting to connect to my home wireless network.  Thus far it appears this is going to be Strike Two for me and the iPad 2.  My wifi network is 802.11g using WPA2-AES and 128 bit key.  The iPad 2 recognizes the presence of my network (the SSID appears in the listing when it prompts me to connect), however, when I supply the 128bit key to connect, the iPad 2 reports that it is unable to connect.
I went into the Network configuration in the General Settings and attempted to add the network manually (ensuring I could specify WPA2 as the encryption type).  Same failure.
Any hints on getting this thing to connect to my network?  I've already watered the security down to 128bit encryption (from 256bit).  All the other devices in my home are able to connect without issue.  The iPad 2 detects a strong signal from the router.
Thanks,
Josh

Answer 1

I appreciate everyone that responded with the intent of helping me solve the issue.  This forum is weird -- there are many users that try to help with iPad2 issues and then there are many that mock me and say I should just return it for expecting this very expensive device to just work.
After a late night of debugging with Wireshark, I finally tracked down the problem (Apple, feel free to send me a cheque for my services)
I will post the solution here for those who desire to use an 802.11x security protocol that has not yet been compromised (WPA2-AES).
When you attempt to join a wireless network, the iPad asks for the password.  If this password contains any characters other than 0-9, A-F (hexadecimal), WPA states that Password Based Key Derivation Function 2 (RSA Security, PKCS #5) must be used to calculate the pre-shared key.  If however, the password contains only hexadecimal characters, then that value *is* the key to be used (e.g. do not run the PBKDF2 function)
I specify my network keys in hex both in my router and my devices.  This means the devices nor the router need to invoke PBKDF2.
The key I specified in my router was entered using upper case hexadecimal letters (e.g. A, B, C, D, E, F) whereas the key I entered on the iPad 2 was entered using lower case hexadecimal letters (e.g. a, b, c, d, e, f).  Since I am specifying a key, the uppercase and lower case hexadecimal values have the same binary represention -- meaning they are identical.  The iPad, however, does not treat them as identical and therefore attemps to connect using an invalid pre-shared key (my guess is it is running PBKDF2 when it shouldn't be -- but I don't care enough to troubleshoot it any further)
In summary, this issue will only affect those of us that specify our pre-shared keys explicitly (via hexadecimal) in the router.  As a workaround, make sure you enter the hexadecimal key using only lower case letters (a-f) when you set the key in the router and use lower case letters (default) when entering the key on the iPad 2.
After doing so, iPad 2 can connect as can the other 20 devices I own that followed the WPA specification in the first place.
Josh