can someone tell me where to start to get this card working for linux? i have wireless working on my laptop but it is with centrino and ipw2100, not the same as my desktop. do i need a driver? software? someone please help...

It is possible that MadWiFi could work, but that driver is still in the development phase so it may be a bit tricky to use. Their hardware compatibility list is here .

You shoult also run lspci to see what chipset you've got and do some searching on that.

how do i know what chipset i have? this is the output for lspci

00:06.0 Etherenet controller: Atheros Communications, inc. AR5212 902.11abc NIC (rev 01)

i cant even find where to download madwifi... any help?

OK, you've got the Atheros chipset which madwifi is designed to use.

Their project page is here . Its the first link if you google for madwifi. Like I said, madwifi is under construction and you'll probably have to use CVS to get the code.

If you do a little googling (like on Atheros linux driver) you'll find that Atheros themselve have been suggesting madwifi as their official linux drivers for about a year now.

If I were in your shoes I'd be doing a bit of reading here at LQ on madwifi. There are quite a number of threads on the subject.