ok, im going to start off by saying i am a newbee so some of the stuff i say may not be right.
but anyways, right now i am using ubuntu hardy for my main distrobution. i love it and all, but the main reason i switched to linux (besides drm and the blue screen i see on my comp about ten times a year) is the low price and the ability to change it. and ubuntu to me doesnt need changing on my part. so i was thinking of partitioning half my hard drive to pure debian and start creating my own distrobution off of that. the only problem i have with debian is internet. i have an ibm bus card 802.11 b/g. on the hardware drivers screen on ubuntu it shows it as an atheros card. and i remembered reading that most atheros wireless cards dont work with most linux distrobutions due to its non public source code. and since i cant change the source code, i was wondering this question: is there any software out there for debian for atheros cards or should i just save up like $50 and buy a new wireless card?
also, if there is a better linux distrobution out there(perferably debian based) that is better for working with to learn how to change it, please let me know?

isn't it possible to switch to a "wired" network? you might get away from a lot of problems... one ist security... and the other is problems with drivers...

im using a laptop. my router is in the basement and i use my laptop about everywhere but my basement. like on my kitchen table for my homework or at a coffee shop and stuff like that so wireless is a big issue. my parents got really made the last time i got a 100 foot cable and had it running throught the house so i could do my homework on the kitchen table. a "wired" network is a good idea, but it limits me in a lot of ways.

You can usually get the same drivers you have on Ubuntu, you just need to know what they are and maybe peek a little bit under the hood how they are configured. If they are "restricted" then they are not available as part of Debian proper, but you can get them from the same place as Ubuntu gets them, or maybe even retrofit the Ubuntu drivers if you're a little clever.

Knoppix is a live distro which I believe has a rather vocal customization community, and it's Debian-based. Maybe you want to try that. It's sort of leaning towards Ubuntu in that they take drivers where they can get them, regardless of those pesky firmware licensing issues, but it should be one of the easiest to get rolling.

thx for the tip era
it gave me the genius idea to go to google and get driver help. i got the page (Linuxant - DriverLoader for Wireless LAN devices - Introduction) and everyone says that it works. the only problem is that i think it is a free trial software so i dont know how long it would work on my comp. now my question would be, what book would give me the information to get the driver lists in knoppix/ubuntu and how to make them work (the line of code i mean). i have alot of linux books on pdf and i could get another if i had to.

i wont be able to say what happens for a little while since i dont have debian installed at the moment
i have a partition on my laptop that will usually changes grub booting distributions every week or so to find a good one to use for learning kinda like raw CLI linux. i have to install debian sometime this week and try it out. ill try to get to the installation soon.

The specifics of how to identify your wlan depends on which bus it's attached to. For an on-board WLAN card that would be PCI, or perhaps USB these days I guess. So get the lspci / lsusb (and lspci -v -v / lsusb -v -v) output and correlate that with the output from lsmod and you should be on your way. The startup messages in dmesg are also helpful although often somewhat cryptic; although certainly not more so than the lsmod driver names.

As for "bare-bones CLI-only" Linux, I am quite comfortable with Ubuntu as a front-end for the command line (and very little beyond the command line -- Emacs, and my browser, and my music player, and occasionally the photo viewer). If you really wanna go hardcore I guess you will be looking at Gentoo soon enough, though (-: