I am very new to linux and openSUSE, but I have an Atheros. I have been following these instructions

http://en.opensuse.org/Atheros_ndiswrapper

but yet, when I get to
My console loses the directory # etc, and just sits there. Does this mean it is working, or does it mean that it froze / glitched? Im still letting it sit for now, but I dont know how long Im supposed to wait.

you only have to type "modprobe ndiswrapper" The first line followed by # is just a comment for your reference and not to be typed. Or you might know that already, in which case you may indeed be hung. Why? Dunno... Are you operating as root? I assume so since you look for the # prompt to return which is root's own prompt. You can see if nothing happened by presseing CTRL-C and seeing if the prompt returns; and then follow the next step in that script to look for errors. If the prompt doesn't return you could press alt-f2 to get a new tty and login as root there. Run "ps aux" and see if modprobe is still running, if so get it's PID number and kill it using "kill ?some pid?" Then type exit to end that session, and alt-f1 to return to your first tty if necessary.

I skipped modprobe after canceling and now recieve a couple of errors as next step says, will post them in a minute.

it doesnt freeze, it just asks for another line
after modprobe ndiswrapper (and you press enter)
it seems like it does nothing but you have to now next
iwconfig

Actually it was doing something different, was going to new line but not giving the prompt. I finally made it work right, but then I broke some other stuff and ended up reinstalling. Gonna give madwifi another shot.

madwifi installs (or seems to) but.. I dont know what to do next. I have run "madwifi-0.9.2.1-0.1.i586.rpm" and it opens yast and goes through full setup process, but afterwords will not sense network or anything.. and when I try to setup ndiswrapper it fails with a multitude of errors on dmesg | grep ndiswrapper

Though there were errors, I tried the next item (ifup wlan0) and it couldnt find wlan0. Im completely lost and pissed by now :P

look here: http://en.opensuse.org/Atheros_madwifi

read the part that says Installation of kernel modules, so you add the madwifi to your installation source in yast, download and install through yast and then reboot and it should work

that's how I got my atheros card working

by the way, it's ath0 not wlan0

hope this helps

-bhert

and me are stumped!!