Further to what deltaflyer noted,... here is the opensuse wikipage on the Atheros and the madwifi device:
http://en.opensuse.org/Atheros_madwifi

Don't forget to install both "madwifi" and "madwifi-kmp-<yourkernel>" .
And also prior to going yast to configure, send the "modprobe ath_pci" from an xterm/konsole with root permissions.

And the thinkwiki page provides good info on Linux and IBM laptops:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:T41

where that link leads you here:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/IBM_11a/b/g_...ini_PCI_Adapter
... with a note that the madwifi should work with this model (T41) IBM laptop.