I could not get my WL card to work in Linux. My PC is Aser Aspire 5100 with AMD64 2X CPU. The Madwifi driver (64 bit) does load but does not work. So, I tried the soloution in the following post but using 64bit driver (http://www.atheros.cz/download.php?a...01A&system=2):

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/j.../limitstart,0/

I unloaded the Madwifi driver and loaded the ndiswrapper driver but same problem. Please help me to get it working.

netathrx : driver installed
device (168C:001C) present

Review: http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/RedHat

Not sure why you'd want to look at RedHat instructions if you're using Sidux. I would recommend that you look for help on the Sidux forums. I've heard they're very helpful. I do hope they ream you out thoroughly for screwing around with ndiswrapper. I'd try to help you myself based on Debian techniques, but I've generally found that installing ndiswrapper messes things up to a point that makes it difficult to get native drivers functioning correctly.

But this problem is not limited to SIDUX-AMD64. I faced the same problem in PCLinuxOS also, but PCLinux was 32 bit and my laptop is 64 bit.

netathrx : driver installed
device (168C:001C) present

I tested it with following distros and got the same results:

Ubuntu LiveCD
Fedora 7 LiveCD
Mepis LiveDVD AMD64

The question here, do I need a firmware for my card? If yes, where to get it?

I downloaded the latest KDE LinuxMint distro for AMD64 and faced the same problem. But this time it told me that my wireless card is not supported by HAL. Any help please?

The Acer 5100 Aspire laptops comes with one of two wireless interfaces built in, one is the Atheros AR5005G the other is the Broardcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g]. If the the AR5005G then use the madwifi driver from here, which has everything yo might need; http://madwifi.org/

No need for ndiswrapper or loading Windows driver, but you do have to configure the interface after building installing the driver for a modern kernel;

http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/FirstTimeHowTo

Running LiveCD versions of Linux is not the best way or easiest way to add support for wireless devices that are not already part of the 'live edition'.

Thank you. I downloaded the driver from the link you sugested and did make & make install after removing the old driver. I restarted my system but same problem. dmesg has the following:

ath_hal: 0.9.18.0 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
wlan: 0.8.4.2 (0.9.3.2)
ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (0.9.3.2)
PCI: Enabling device 0000:02:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:00.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:02:00.0 to 64
wifi%d: unable to attach hardware: 'Hardware didn't respond as expected' (HAL status 3)
ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:02:00.0 disabled

What should I do now?