I know the answer to this is out there somewhere but I have honestly spent the last few weeks trying everything and have done about 30 clean installs. I can’t get my atheros card to work, and I am not a Linux jedi so I am unable to do anything without a specific detailed howto. My card is listed in Yast, but it shows this messege.
AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (Not connected)
BusID : 0000:03:00.0
Unable to configure the network card because the kernel device (eth0, wlan0) is not present. This is mostly caused by missing firmware (for wlan devices). See dmesg output for details.
Please help. 
Had a look in the wireless section ? That’s where most wireless answers lie 
Andy
Blacklist ath5k, add the madwifi repositories to yast, install madwifi, reboot, and good luck.
I have been all through the wireless posts, though I thought the point I am at now is a driver issue, because I THINK I have blacklisted ath5k, and I already added madwifi to yast and I think I installed it. I’ll go post in wireless if thats where this belongs.
Like I said I have been all through here, I’ve just never posted before… now I’m desperate.
A few checks, post the result of
lsmod |grep ath
grep ath5k /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
modinfo ath_pci
modinfo ath_hal
From the posts that I look at the card should work.