The commands I supplied above are just to bring up the wifi in the command line mode. If you're having problem to discover all wireless network, then there might be some problem with you sim or your mobile service coverage.

i flashed my emmc earlier today and also the firmware and that also did not seem to work

my sim card seems to be working fine, i can make calls and all that and my internet from my service provider is working fine also, its just that my n900 cant find any wifi connections.

What does 'iwlist wlan0 scanning' show you then? (run as root)

it shows 'iwlist: not found'

run as root

sry im kinda new at this but i think im catching on. just want to make sure im doing it correctly tho so ill tell you exactly what i did, so in xterminal first i typed in 'root'. then i typed 'iwlist wlan0 scanning'
and it gave me '-sh: iwlist: not found

Install wireless-tools. I thought it was installed by default, my apology.

i installed wireless-tools and then ran the command 'iwlist wlan0 scanning' and it gave me 'interface doesn't support scanning: network is down'

Hi, even I am stuck out here at this point.

Steps till followed till now,
1. I have installed wifi switcher
2. disabled wifi from the status bar
3. uninstalled wifi switcher
4. eMMC flashed the device
5. installed wifi switcher
6. disabled wifi - the status bar doesn't respond
7. opened xterminal and tried to login is as root even that is stuck
8. restarted phone
9. opened xterminal followed you commands at the start of this thread.
10. wireless-tools were not present, got them using my mobile data provider connection. (Only this works, that too when I've selected 'Any connection' in settings and I launch a webpage and it connects successfully.')
11. executed the command 'iwlist wlan0 scanning' and got the following message,
wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

I don't know how to fix this problem. Kindly let me know if I've missed any step.