Atheros ar9285 and backtrack

[Redm1]

Hello I am having trouble finding my wireless connection in backtrack. I am using 32bit backtrack in vmware. I understand some people say they have gotten their onboard wireless card to work on a virtual machine. I would like it if I did not have to buy a external wireless adapter. If anyone can get me started it would be greatly appreciated. It just seems hard to get anywhere because I don't even know where to start. I mean nothing shows up under chipset or wireless connections. I really need someone to guide me. I have been googling all day and I can not find anything I hope there is something better out there then the information I came across if not hopefully one of you can get me going. I think I need to install a driver or something but I can't seem to install a lot of things. I am obviously doing something wrong so if you can explain in detail please do.

[g0tmi1k]

You can use your onboard wireless card instead a virtual machine - but it will not be detected as a wireless card. The VMware will bridge the wifi connection to a wired interface.
If you wish to have a wireless card inside a virtual machine - you need to have a USB WiFi device and attach it to the machine.

[Redm1]

what if I decide to install it as a second operating system and choose to boot backtrack at start up will it work then, if so what will I need.

[g0tmi1k]

what if I decide to install it as a second operating system and choose to boot backtrack at start up will it work then, if so what will I need.

Yes, dual booting allows you to use the wireless card, as a wireless card.
You will need one of the backtrack ISOs. There are lots of guides on how to do this (Check the wiki!)

[Redm1]

tar jxvf compat-wireless-$(date -I).tar.bz2
tar: compat-wireless-2011-09-13.tar.bz2: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

why do i get no such directory error I am trying to install compat-wireless is there an all in one tutorial on how to do this. Including the headers.

This is what i did.

prepare-kernel-sources

then this is what it did

[
*] apt-getting linux-source...
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
linux-source is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libdmraid1.0.0.rc16 python-pyicu libdebian-installer4 cryptsetup
  libecryptfs0 reiserfsprogs rdate bogl-bterm ecryptfs-utils libdebconfclient0
  dmraid linux-source-2.6.38 keyutils
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 50 not upgraded.[*] extracting sources, please wait[*] doing stuff...
cp: missing destination file operand after `/boot/'
Try `cp --help' for more information.
scripts/kconfig/conf --silentoldconfig Kconfig
  CHK     include/linux/version.h
  CHK     include/generated/utsrelease.h
  CALL    scripts/checksyscalls.sh
ln: creating symbolic link `/lib/modules/2.6.38/build/linux': File exists[*] tada!

then i did this and nothing happened

root@bt:~# cd /usr/src/linux
root@bt:/usr/src/linux# cp -rf include/generated/* include/linux
root@bt:/usr/src/linux#

then i downloaded the latest version of compat-wireless to my desktop and entered:

tar jxvf compat-wireless-$(date -I).tar.bz2

and this is what i was given

tar: compat-wireless-2011-09-13.tar.bz2: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

If you could explain what to do for me that would be great if not could you refer a link to a good tutorial I can't seem to find exactly what I need. I know there has to be something but there are so many steps I would really like some really clear help with bullet points.

[g0tmi1k]

Thats because you dont have the right file downloaded.

Try doing

tar jxvf compat-wireless-*.tar.bz2

instead of

tar jxvf compat-wireless-$(date -I).tar.bz2