The most easy wasy to test your wireless I used this Live CD with its easy to use automated script anyone can run this Dist CD with the right gear I tested this with a Netgear WG511T wireless card  and it ran excellent it also gave you an option to setup an eviltwin mode but you need to have two wireless cards for this to work.I also ran kismet it was a bomb I hope anyone that tries Russix will feel the same enjoy:
links to the website

http://www.russix.com/

download for the Live CD

http://www.russix.com/downloads/download.htm

I've looked at Russix before (actually have a burned CD sat on my desk now).

Problem that I've had is that I can't get it to find my wi-fi device on my laptop with an atheros chip and can't boot on my laptop with an Intel chip. Has anyone else had similar issues or do I just seem to buy strange hardware combinations? Think I'm a little behind, version wise, so if everything is looking stable I'd be interested in taking another look.

It's not directly on point, but I generally just use the backtrack approved wireless list as a guide when trying to figure out what will work for any linux live CD.  The rational being that many wireless adapters won't work for various types of attacks because of the chipsets that they use rather than the drivers.  The following link is regularly updated to show what people have gotten to work in the past and how they did it.

http://backtrack.offensive-security.com/index.php?title=HCL:Wireless