For many weeks maybe even months, I was having lots of problems with a very slow wifi connection, and it was driving me crazy. A couple times I slammed my fist so hard on the table top that I nearly broke my hand.

None of the other laptops in the house were having any problems, but they're all Windows machines and I'm using Ubuntu.

There I was complaining all the time, for once Windows was actually out performing Linux which when you think about it is impossible. What could be wrong?

Googled around and found it fairly quickly. To think that after all the misery and stress, I could solve this ornery issue by using the following simple command:

$ sudo echo "options ath5k nohwcrypt=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/ath5k.conf

You might need to change the '5' to a '9' if you have the newer driver installed. But I'm still using Ubuntu 10.10 and haven't built up enough courage to do an upgrade.

Now my wifi connection is really buzzing along and it feels great, like I've been liberated somehow.