Solved: Problems operating wireless hardware in ubuntu

[new tech guy]

Hello folks,
Thanks to a previous thread in hardware i was able to get to drivers for this pc, see here: http://forums.techguy.org/hardware/756433-trouble-acer-drivers.html

Im mainly concerned over the wireless lan driver. I have ubuntu installed on the pc (owner decided they wanted linux instead of windows where the card worked fine) and with ndiswrapper i was able to install the inf file for the card. Now my problem is that ubuntu does not seem to list the card under the wireless connection section of the top menubar. I can connect to the network perfectly fine over wired ethernet but the wifi just wont cooperate. Could it be that i have a uk driver on a us system??? Im stumped at what i should do next. After installing the driver i rebooted just to be sure it was not that and still, no wireless card is being shown although linux recognizes the pc has the hardware installed. Thanks for any help in advance

 

[arochester]

I have come across a case where the Vista driver did not work under ndiswrapper - but the WindowsXP one did.

The site http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5730.html lists three different WLAN drivers , two Atheros and one Broadcom

Do you know, for sure, which wireless chipset you are dealing with? If there is any doubt then open a Terminal and input

lspci

The result should appear under Network Driver. What is that result?

 

[new tech guy]

Its the atheros driver. I know that for a fact as i looked it up in hwinfo on another distro. WIll have to try the xp one then and see if i have any luck. Cannot do it now as im at school so will try when i am at home.

 

[new tech guy]

The output of lspci is that there is an unknown atheros pci controller. Other than that a bunch of intel hits for the various buses and such on the board. and the card installed is Atheros AR5B91

 

[new tech guy]

Update, we put the pc on windows and are using vmware to run virtual machines of the linux distros which seems to work fine.