I am was trying both ndiswraper and madwifi. typing iwconfig gives me no wireless extension messages.
[uname@localhost /] iwconfig
lo no wireless extension
eth0 no wireless extension
ath0 no wireless extension
[uname@localhost /]
Also I do not have rpmbuild in my system. I was trying to install another software a few days back and when I tried rpmbuild, I got an unknown command message.

What is your distribution? Have you installed wireless-tools? If you have the reason why you may not be able to see anything when you do iwconfig is because you are not logged in as root. You can type 'su -' at the command prompt if you are not logged in as the root user. Also this may be the reason you are getting a fatal error when you execute 'modprobe ath_pci'. If you eceute 'modprobe ath_pci' first all other modules that are associated with the madwifi driver will also start.

Hockeyfan

When I installed the kernel source from the DVD using Mandrake control center, it installed version 2.4.27-0.pre2.1mdk. But 'uname -r' gave me 2.6.8.1-12mdk. With the kernel source from the DVD, madwifi nor ndiswrapper would compile. Then 'hockeyfan' suggested to install the source from the shell prompt.
Well I decided to format my entire system and start afresh. But for some reason, I decided to choose 'Upgrade' option rather than the 'Install' option at bootup. To my surprise, the older kernel source was patched to the latest version during the upgrade. After this is just did
cd wirelesstools
make
make install
and then
cd madwifi
make
make install
Everything went on perfectly (except for a few warnings). I then used the mandrake control centre to add a new connection and it automatically showed me an atheros card in my pcmcia slot. The rest was easy .
Thanks a lot hockeyfan

Glad that I could help you.