I have managed to get my Asus laptop an X50RL working with Ubuntu 8.10 and connected to the Internet using the madfifi driver. The card BTW is an Atheros AR5007EG.

The peculiarity is that Ubuntu turns the card off just before the login screen. My only way round this so far is by following this code:
[HTML]sudo su
cd /sys/devices/platform/asus-laptop
echo 1 >> wlan[/HTML]

No I did not work this out by myself I needed a lot of help. My competency is elementary

What I want to do now to to ensure the AR5007EG stays on during boot so that login to the net is automatic. Does anyone know how I can do this.

I can't comment on why you need this extra command but .....

Any "extra" commands needed at boot time can be put in the file /etc/rc.local and they will be run at boot time, as the root user, after everything else has been started up.

So, as root, open and edit the file /etc/rc.local with your favourite editor.

Scroll down the file.

Just before the final exit 0, insert this line:
So the end of the file now looks like this:
Save the changes and reboot. All should be well.

Thank you Thank you!

This worked the WiFi remained on during boot-up and as soon as I logged in it connected.

As to why I needed this I have no idea. I needed a lot of help to get this far in fact a few months before I could safely throw Vista out.

Once again thank you, you put the final piece in the puzzle.

Regards

Bob....

Happy to have helped.
I didn't notice that you're new, so "Welcome to LQ!"