Hi there 

For those who are using Madwifi wifi cards : Ath5k or Ath9k , you dont need to use Compat-wireless, although it does support both cards but not totally, therefore Madwifi builds , maintains and updates it own drivers independently.

Procedure :

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

From there make sure you uncomment anything that starts with "deb" in there. So changer it from "#deb" to "deb" Something along thoes lines. To exit and save hit "CTRL+X" the answer "YES" to do you want to save, then finally hit "ENTER"

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

sudo apt-get install subversion

sudo -i

sudo svn checkout newbielink:http://svn.madwifi-project.org/madwifi/trunk/ [nonactive] madwifi-ng

cd madwifi-ng

echo "" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

echo "#Remove To Install MadWIFI Drivers" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

echo "blacklist ath9k" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

echo "blacklist ath5k" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

make && make install

echo ath_pci >> /etc/modules

Restart your machine.
It should work
Ps: Follow the steps one by one carefully,Tested on BB 2.05 32bit & Ubuntu 12.04 64bit , do it on your own risk !

Hope it helps 

I just started using linux and following your how-to led me to an error while installing the linux headers.

the original post is correct, it is probably you are messing up with ` and '