I have a Acer Aspire One netbook (http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AOA150-14.../dp/B001EYV9TM )and installed Ubuntu 8.04..
I followed the docs in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne to install the madwifi drivers ,but its not working after following the steps...there's two entries when i do iwconfig or ifconfig ...ath0 and wifi0

So which one to configure and which one to remove ? how to scan for wireless networks?

I have the AAO 150 and 250 and both were able to use wifi using Fedora 10 and Fedora 11. Running from a F10 or F11 LiveUSB the NetworkManager icon shows the wireless access points and on my home network when I click on it an "authentication box" opens as it is wpa secured and asks for the pass key and upon entering it asks to create a password for the default keyring.

On a permanent install it goes through the same procedure and when it asks to create a password for the default keyring use your desktop login password and on subsequent sessions it will login and connect automatically but if you don't want to login automatically you can change that in NetworkManager "Edit Connections" the driver is listed as "ath5k" in NetworkManager.

When I want to see wireless info I use:and it list the wireless ap's.

In my case i want to connect to a WPA2 AES access point.The network manager is unable to detect the wifi network

So does NetworkManager detect/show any wireless AP's if not something may be broken in your distro or it doesn't supply the proper drivers for your card.

No the NetworkManager doesn't detect/show any wireless AP's.

$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wifi0 no wireless extensions.

ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"" Nickname:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm Sensitivity=1/1
Retryff RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=0/70 Signal level=-96 dBm Noise level=-96 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

$ iwlist ath0 scan
ath0 No scan results


$ iwlist wifi0 scan
wifi0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

What's the chance of you getting the Fedora 10 or 11 LiveCD.iso and making a LiveUSB using Liveusb-Creator and boot that from your AAO and you will probably find that NetworkManager will show that wireless AP and you will be able to connect.

Otherwise someone on the Ubuntu forum will surely have had the same problem and have a fix for it.

Thanks for that... i can try Fedora 11 on this..let me know what things work out of the box and what doesn't. What are the post install configuration required?

Hi - Fedora 11 XFCE respin works just great out of the box. THere are a couple of additional things to tweak - like getting scrolling on the touchpad working and setting the DPI to something sensible.
I had trouble with MadWifi on F10, so I just use the default drivers for the wireless - the little wifi light doesn't light up, but who cares about that really?

Hi,
I followed a similar route to you on my Aspire One but using Ubuntu 8.10. I also tried the Madwifi drivers but could not get the wifi to work. I then heard about Ubuntu 9.04 UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix) which installed easily and works, including the WiFi. You do have to turn on the wifi card using the switch at the front under the keyboard until you see the network logo changing to a rotating arrow and then you should be able to left click to reveal all of your neighbours' connections as well as your own. Unfortunately the WiFi led does not work but some patience will reveal all. 9.04 UNR also resizes the windows to suit the small screen. I also use a mobile network connection via O2 or 3 without any configuration problems. Altogether the best release I have found. By the way I am a complete linux newbie who has been plagued with windows since ver 3.0 and am now impressed!
Regards,
Peter

the Ubuntu Wiki covers enabling the LED..

Cheers !!