ThinkPad 11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Mini Express Adapter

This is a WiFi Adapter that is installed in a Mini-PCI Express slot

Features

Chipset: Atheros AR5008 or Atheros AR5418
Integrated Mac Processor and Radio Chip: Atheros, unknown model
IEEE Standards: 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n (draft)
PCI ID: 168c:0024

IBM Partnumbers

42T0825 [1]

Linux WiFi driver

There's now (04.04.07) added experimental support for the AR5008 chipset to a new branch in MadWifi. I have compiled this driver successfully, but it's still at an experimental stage, so no promises are given. Howto

There is an old ticket for this card at madwifi, #1001.

There is an new ticket for this card at madwifi-branch, #1243.

To install this driver, just checkout the branch madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13.

mkdir /tmp/madwifi
cd /tmp/madwifi
svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/branches/madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13/
cd madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13/
make
make install
*choose [r]
reboot

News fron the madwifi-branch:

*  milestone changed from version 0.9.x - progressive release candidate phase to version 0.9.4.
FYI: the madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13 branch has been merged to trunk 
(and the branch has been removed). If you don't want to wait until the next release (v0.9.4), 
you could go with a snapshot or checkout from trunk - just make sure that your code is >= r2360.

Until the madwifi driver stabilizes you might want to get the Windows driver from Lenovo's support site and use a recent version of ndiswrapper (>= 1.29). I've compiled a Howto for this card.

AR5418 is still to new?

If anyone is able to get the AR5418 to work with madwifi, please add your procedure for getting it to work - in the meantime, ndiswrapper works with the windows driver.

Hardware switch

Some ThinkPads have a hardware switch that must be in the on position for the radio to work, regardless of driver state:

ThinkPad 11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Mini Express Adapter