1. A little preperation

First of all we need to be sure that we are talking for the same thing Open a terminal window (Applications -> Accesories -> Terminal) and run this command:

lspci | grep Atheros

The result should look like this:

04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

2. Let’s make this Atheros AR242x work

Now that we are sure about the hardware, you can start doing the actual installation. First of all we need to install the backports modules. Open the terminal window and execute this:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-intrepid

Then you should deactivate any proprietary driver you may using for the Atheros card. Go to System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers and deactivate the “Support for Atheros 802.11 wireless LAN cards” driver.

Now we need to install WICD as it can be configured to work with the WEXT driver. Go to Settings > Repositories > Third Party Software > Add and add the following line:

deb http://apt.wicd.net intrepid extras

Finally go to the terminal and run these commands:

wget http://apt.wicd.net/wicd.gpg
sudo apt-key add wicd.gpg
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wicd
wicd-client -n

That’s it we are ready Reboot your system and wifi is on again. In order to use it with WPA encrypted networks, use the WEXT WPA supplicant driver by going in wicd, Preferences -> General settings.