I have an ASUS Z80K laptop, and Fedora Core 4 x86_64 does not seem to see the internal wlan at all. I would like to get it figured out at some point, or I may have to kill myself and buy XP (not sure which would come first). I'm a newbie when it comes to drivers with Linux, so I don't know if it can't see it because it doesn't have drivers or what. I believe the Z80K has ASUS 802.11 b/g wlan, but I've never yet seen it work, nor have I seen any indication of the presence of a wireless card on this laptop. Anyway, whatever help I can get will be appreciated, as I am a curious learner and if there is no solution I still would like to better understand the problem.

After Doing some research it looks like your model of laptop comes with about 2 or 3 types of wireless cards.
one I know of is an Interl wireless card. If you have your manual, try looking through that first and see what specific model you have. After you locate your model your will need to find a driver from the chipset manufacturer.

So this is a driver issue? Linux won't even see the device if it doesn't have the driver?

I don't have the manuals -- are there any utilities that might help me? Maybe not.

Secondly, can I have a quick rundown on drivers with Linux? My experience with drivers is only with Windows, and I know what they're used for and that Windows stores them in specific places, but with Linux everything is different, having no "registry" and such. How can I install a driver? Is it more like there are a ton of drivers sitting there, and I just have to choose the right one to use?

It will depend on the type of package it comes with. If we can find out what your wireless card is exactly then we can go from their. Try going to asus's website and try locating information by using your model number off the laptop or you can give them a call and see if they kept records of your laptop.