Ubuntu knows I have a wireless card, but won't give me the option to use it.

Oh, addition: the Help function tells me to access the Hardware option in the System menu, but running off the disk drive, there's no Hardware option listed. I have no idea if that's connected to the above problem at all, or just a function of running without being fully installed. But it's a detail that might be relevant, so I list it.

System menu, Administration, Hardware Drivers to see the proprietary drivers.

You can connect to a wireless Access point by clicking on the Network manager toolbar icon in the top right of screen.

Hope this helps.

See, I already did all that. That's how I know that Ubuntu recognizes the presence of the Atheros, and has proprietary drivers in the first place. However, despite that, the Network Manager doesn't even recognize that it has a Wireless link available. All this is as I said in the first place. It's not like I haven't noodled around trying to figure out the issue before I came here, and it doesn't appear that it's an easy fix like that.

So given that it's not a simple matter of me not knowing how to use a basic menu, are there any other suggestions?

Apologies for the perceived slight, most user issues are quite simply fixed and the obvious solution is normally the correct one, especially when dealing with new users of linux.
(see Ockham's Razor)

My offering above was intended to help you find a solution.

Can you post some of the results of the following to shed further light on the facts?

sudo ifconfig

Find which is the wireless interface, e.g. eth0, and then

sudo ethtool eth0

sudo mii-tool
sudo mii-diag

sudo lshw -C network

lspci | grep Ethernet

I should apologize as well for being a touch snippy, but you can understand, I'm sure, how being told to do just what you just did might put a person on edge. I apologize, though: clearly you WERE only trying to help, and I should acknowledge your positive intentions. Oh, and quality reference to Ockham's Razor, btw! Thumbs up on that one!

In any case, I went ahead and connected my network cable in this instance, because the volume of data produced by the queries you requested I try are too much to transcribe, and copying to a storage media before rebooting back to windows is even more troublesome than breaking out the cable. So, here's the cut-and-paste of my terminal session:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1b:38:ff:2f:e3
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:22 Base address:0x1000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:5820 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:5820 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:291000 (284.1 KB) TX bytes:291000 (284.1 KB)

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
 Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
 Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                         100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
 Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
 Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                         100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
 Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
 Speed: 10Mb/s
 Duplex: Half
 Port: MII
 PHYAD: 32
 Transceiver: internal
 Auto-negotiation: on
 Supports Wake-on: pumbg
 Wake-on: d
 Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
 Link detected: no

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mii-tool
eth0: no link

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mii-diag
Using the default interface 'eth0'.
Basic registers of MII PHY #32: 1000 7809 0000 0000 01e1 0000 0000 0000.
 Basic mode control register 0x1000: Auto-negotiation enabled.
 Basic mode status register 0x7809 ... 7809.
   Link status: not established.
   End of basic transceiver information.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network UNCLAIMED
       description: Ethernet controller
       product: AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 1
       bus info: pci@0000:02:01.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 10
       serial: 00:1b:38:ff:2f:e3
       size: 10MB/s
       capacity: 100MB/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=8139too driverversion=0.9.28 duplex=half latency=64 link=no maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 module=8139too multicast=yes port=MII speed=10MB/s

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ lspci | grep Ethernet
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

I can see some points where it mentions the Atheros, but otherwise, it's pretty much Greek to me. I'm an excellent user, not any great shakes as a programmer. Therefore, yeah, if this can help you figure anything out, by all means, let me know. I'll accept any assistance you can offer.

Ok, I've read some interesting information in relation to this.
The card may be misdetected (this looks possible since the card is shown as AR242x but is an AR5007.

Can you get all the latest software (& kernel) updates using the cable plugged in?
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

This would be the best and easiest outcome.

If after a reboot, you still are out of luck, this sounds like something that may work for you. (Using Madwifi to run the wireless card)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5120351&postcount=12

There does seem to be some problems with this particular wifi chipset in Ubuntu Hardy and there are various postings about how people have got it working.

It seems as though I'll have to commit to the Ubuntu install before I can get a good fix on this. I ought to be able to use the internet normally with the cable, but if I'm running off the CD, there's little point to trying to fix it. Therefore, I'll have to do an install before I can mark this problem solved.

But thanks very much for your help so far. I'll keep you posted when I get this rolling.

One additional note: in the forum post you linked to above, I run into problems on step 2. Specifically, the phrase "extract the downloaded tarball" is something that references something I have no idea what it's about, and then the instruction "make"... yeah, when I finally stop chickening out and just install, this could be an issue if it comes to that.

Finally installed, did an update, did an upgrade, made sure everything was installed, and restarted several times. The Network Manager still does not acknowledge that I have a wireless connection option; all I get are "Wired Connection" and "Point to Point Connection" choices.

So I'm going to try downloading the tarball, and I suppose I'll have to see if I can figure out how to enter the proper commands. I'll post again in a few minutes.

----- Original Message ----
From: Tony Mugan <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 11:41:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Question #39788]: Ubuntu knows I have a wireless card, but won't give me the option to use it.

Your question #39788 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/39788

    Status: Open => Answered

Tony Mugan proposed the following answer:
Step 2 in that link is a command to download a .tar.gz file which is
known as a "tarball". It's like a .zip file if you are familiar with
that.

One way of extracting the tarball is to simply double-click it.

Then you need to get into the same folder as the extracted files and
type "make" to compile them.

--
If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
know that it is solved:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/39788/+confirm?answer_id=8

If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
following page to enter your feedback:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/39788

You received this question notification because you are a direct
subscriber of the question.

Thank you for the data on what a tarball is.

In working with the link you provided above, it kept cycling and cycling and then didn't ever finish, so I tried reloading the page, and must have hit an inappropriate link, because it bumped me up a level in the discussion thread, and when I went back, I saw the post immediately above the one you provided, the one by "nicedude."

After I tried the download again, I went do nicedude's entry, here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=795984

He offers a fairly plain-language, step-by-step instructions for beginners such as myself as to how to get madwifi and how to install it. The only hitch was the tarball he linked to was out of date, but the README in the download itself directed me to the appropriate site, and I just switched out the folder names.

I had to do what he says he did later on in his instructions, which is disable the network manager and install WICD instead, which I hope doesn't cause issues, but at least I'm up and wireless now. My little hardware button on my laptop is still burning amber, claiming the wifi isn't working, but I'm actually posting this, so I've got the last laugh.

In any case, without your links and some fumbling and some luck, I might have had a much rougher time getting this working, so I thank you. Hopefully this report of mine might help you with someone else's problem in the future; I'd recommend Nicedude's approach before Lusis89's, for beginners, at least, as Nicedude is much more explanatory. Regardless, I appreciate your assistance.