I have read other posts on this subject and I still need help. I am running backtrack-linux on VMware on my laptop. I have the Atheros AR9285 802.11b/g/n WiFi adapter and it won't recognize my wireless card. I get this:
root@bt:~/compat-wireless-2.6.33# /etc/init.d/networking start
Configuring network interfaces...wlan0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

SIOCSIFADDR: No such device
wlan0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
wlan0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Bind socket to interface: No such device
Failed to bring up wlan0.
done.
(It does start my ethernet card)
Iwconfig:
root@bt:~/compat-wireless-2.6.33# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

Ifconfig:
# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0c:29:89:90:b7
inet addr:192.168.206.128 Bcast:192.168.206.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe89:90b7/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2443 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1681 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2880469 (2.8 MB) TX bytes:227794 (227.7 KB)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1200 (1.2 KB) TX bytes:1200 (1.2 KB)

lspci | grep wireless:
Returns nothing
lspci | grep atheros
Returns nothing

I cannot get my wireless card to even be detected much less work. I have tried all kinds of shit and still nothing. HELP!

You will not see the wireless-card in your VM, unless it is an USB-adapter and you attach it to your VM. VMware emulates a PC, and with that a network card, that is internally attached to your net. It doesn't even know if your system is attached to your network with a wired or wireless connection.

Or in short: While your host system has a wireless card, your guest system hasn't.

1 members found this post helpful.

Yes, it will be emulated as a wired card in your guest operating system. Your connection will be tunneled through to the host operating system. Perhaps a tun/tap dev might have to be set up to do this depending how VMware works. I have used qemu on debian linux to host other operating systems and the ip shows up on the guest system as 10.0.1.15 or something like that for a ip address.