It sounds like that it is set up to use modprobe ath_pci to load the module. You
won't have to go through all of the steps, but just have to use this command
each time you reboot.

Documentation I looked at:
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/FirstTimeHowTo
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Ubuntu

The first point is that madwifi is in the repositories as the last link above
shows.

What I was referring to was having this module load automatically each time you
reboot. This link is rather dated but the method will work with Hardy, but the
step you want is close to the bottom where is says to edit the file etc/modules:
http://www.stchman.com/ath_drv.html