So I installed VectorLinux (standard 5.9 final) parallel to windows to check it out fully.
And it does not recognize my Atheros AR5BXB61 wireless chipset, any hints?
I searched the vector linux forums, and didnt come up with a fitting topic, neither did the atheros.com website have any interesting information or download option for drivers, which i could have used with ndiswrapper.

any advice?

it should.

1. open a terminal, log in as root
("su" <enter> "your_password" <enter>)
2. enter "iwconfig" (without quotes) and show us the output here. your chip should be listed as ath0 or something.

ndiswrapper works with windows drivers, that's the fun. so your windows driver cd is all you need to make it work with ndiswrapper. but give us the iwconfig output first.

3.1 if ath0 is listed and you have an unprotected/access point wlan, it's enough to do
"dhcpcd ath0"
3.2 if you have a protected wlan, use
"iwconfig ath0 key <yourkey>" or "iwconfig ath0 key s:<yourkey>" if it's a passphrase/password and then go to 3.1

"man iwconfig" will bring up the iwconfig man page.

Ok, thanks so far.
I tried what you said, here is the output of "iwconfig":


The problem is: if you write "man iwconfig" you can see in the section about "key" that passphrases (ascii) is currently not supported.
That means that I have to create a hex key for my wlan, I guess.

EDIT:
Now I changed the key to a hex key with 64 characters and entered the essid and the key:
iwconfig ath0 essid xxIDxx
iwconfig ath0 key xxKEYxx

Now the essid is set properly, but setting the key fails:


EDIT #2:
Another test. I deactivated the key (only mac filtering and hidden ssid as protection now) and now it works.
But I'd really like to have a key, although I have a mac filter table up and running to deny access to other but mine systems.

I will choose openSUSE.

I "worked" with openSUSE and from what I can tell its pretty unstable and bloated with stuff.
On one computer it acted all weird. Sometimes freezing etc. or the applications became really slow caus the memory was full.

mac filtering isn't safe. under windows, you can change your mac address with the "arp" command to match an allowed one, which can be found by sniffing some packets.
i'd try a live cd of the same distro which supports your wlan card out of the box and use the configuration there to set up your installed linux.

joey.

that's weird.
i know that it is possible to use vl 5.9's iwconfig with passphrase ("s:<password>") because i used it myself (i'm currently on zenwalk, though). did you try it with s: ? or did you read the manpage and decided right away that you needed a hex key?
how did you enter the hex key - with "-" or without?

setting the essid is not really required, if there's only one wlan around, it will try to connect with this one.

no I tried to set the passphrase with s:
like:
iwconfig ath0 key s:PASSPHRASE

The hex key does not contain "-" characters, as it is self typed in 64 characters long, consisting only of A-F and 0-9

edit:
What kind of key did you (broozar) use?
WPA, WPA2, WEP ... ?

edit #2:
Another thing that bugs me is that it seems to be impossible to change the keymap to any german layout.
Whatever I select in the list it seems to always jump back to default-US.

currently wep.

try with "-"

keymap: what's "the list" you are refering to?
you can change the keymap in several ways.
- in vl, there's a tool called vasm (the administration tool) where there should be a keymap selection. change that.
- using /etc/X11/xorg.conf (the 100%-way):
1. terminal, log in as root
2. "mousepad /etc/X11/xorg.conf"
3. in one of the InputDevice sections, there you shuld find
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "en"

change it to
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"

lines that start with # are commented out.
4. restart X (ctrl+alt+backspace) [or, to be 100% sure, shutdown and reboot)

xfce has an option to always remember you last settings, it's selectable shortly before you log out ("save session" or something).