I always liked the Slackware distribution, everything (well, almost) is really simple and straightforwar. For some time i'm using Zenwalk, a slackware-based distro, on my laptop.
At some point, i needed to connect to a nearby access point, and fortunately this samsung r20 has built-in an Atheros wireless adapter.
At bootup, the kernel reports it as:
ath_pci: wifi0: Atheros 5424/2424: mem=0xd0200000, irq=19
After some "googling" around, I've found this really nice guide, http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php?title=Madwifi-ng_(Atheros)
In a couple of steps, my wifi interface is ready to use:
root[~]# netpkg kernelheaders
root[~]# svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi-ng
root[~]# cd madwifi-ng/
root[madwifi-ng]# make
root[madwifi-ng]# make install
root[madwifi-ng]# modprobe ath_pci
It seems like all is ok, a quick check:
root[madwifi-ng]# iwconfig
lo
no wireless extensions.
eth0
no wireless extensions.
wifi0
no wireless extensions.
ath0
IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"" Nickname:"slash"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power:17 dBm Sensitivity=1/1
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off Power Management:off
Link Quality=0/70 Signal level=-92 dBm Noise level=-92 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
Adding the module to be loaded at boot:
root[madwifi-ng]# echo "/sbin/modprobe ath_pci" >> /etc/rc.d/rc.modules