Lenny with Atheros AR522/AR5213 Chipset

[Richard Werst <rbwerst@gmail.com>]

Greetings to all;

I replaced Etch with a fresh install of Lenny and the only major problem
is with the ATH5K driver -- which is enabled by default.  It will not
maintain a connection to my home network (no security).  

The behavior is rather strange, as it will connect (with a reading of
100% when I am in my office next to the router), and after a short time
the network manager (Gnome) will drop to 0%.

Sometimes it will reconnect when a page request is made -- sometimes
not, and frequently the Icon on the taskbar will disappear and not
return until the system is rebooted.  

It seems to be able to maintain a wired connection.

Are there some setting I can check?

Searching for answers have only led me to people suggesting that ATH5K
be blacklisted, and that the Madwifi driver be used (it worked very well
with Etch).  I've also seen a reference to using "Wicd" as a network
manager because people have encountered problems with the Atheros chip
set, but I'm not familiar with that program.

Help would be appreciated...

As I have been using Etch on several machines since its stable release
I'm not exactly new to Debian -- but I don't consider myself an expert
either.

Thanks

Richard