I have a wireless card with an atheros chipset; therefore, connecting to wireless with Linux distributions can be a super pain in the ears (ears was the suggested spelling in Firefox when I typed 'arse,' and I thought ears was more funny).

however...

tonight, for the first time, I have been able to connect to wifi with WPA2 encryption using a Linux distribution. Before now, I was able to get fedora, ubuntu, puppy, eeZos, debian, and xubuntu to connect to wireless, but without encryption (and even some of them had WEP). My wireless network uses WPA2, so I was never satisfied with any of the distributions.

Tonight I completed an installation on my laptop of Linux which connected exactly the way I wanted it. All this time I've been searching for answers, and finally they have come. Linux Mint!

Linux Mint has two simple steps to get your Atheros Chipset Wireless Cards working on your Lenovo ThinkPads (there have been reports of some Atheros Chipset Wireless Cards on other computers, but not on Lenovo ThinkPads).

the two steps are as follows:

#go to windows wireless drivers
menu->administration->windows wireless drivers #(all the way at the bottom)

#next click +Install New Driver
#browse to location
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/drivers/i386/Atheros_* (or your driver here)

Not only that, but I have put this all onto a USB pen drive. There are multiple bonuses here:

1. No matter what computer I am using, all of my settings will be the same.
2. I can use linux at work without having to change any of my work computers.
3. The dorkness meter is through the roof.

the above actually assumes that any computer that I use is able to boot from USB, but in theory, if it doesn't have a usb port, it likely has a floppy drive, so you could make a boot floppy to find the usb drive. there goes that dork meter again.

I was able to put the entire distribution, plus WINE and django and a couple other applications on a 2gb kingston usb drive, so being greedy, I sprung for an 8gb sandisk usb drive (a whopping $19.97--and you KNOW you can get them dirt cheap online). mind you linux mint already comes with open office (an entire suite of ms office replacement tools--as if anyone reading this wouldn't know that already), the GIMP, Thunderbird, Firefox, Python, and a multitude of other programs.

So much power. So little space.

Anyway I hope that works for anyone at all. If you are helped, let me know. I'm curious as to whether or not I should do more of these types of posts, or if everyone already knows this and I'm just the shop kid. Either way, I'm so giddy right now. I'm going to restart and make absolutely sure this newest distribution will be persistent, so i can spend all night updating and configuring.