What does XFCE edition do differently with wifi?

[unreal223]

Hello, been a while since I've posted here.
I've been going distro to distro for the last few months(mostly waiting for xfce edition to be completed) but now I've decided to just suck it up and use the main edition. My question however is what does xfce edition do diffently with wifi then the main and most other ubuntu/linux derivatives?

With ubuntu/main edition my wifi is slow, doesn't connect at the same ranges(cant even go upstairs in my house without the connection dropping) but with xfce edition I can. I've tried switching to wicd like the xfce ed, but it doesn't seem to fix the problems. So what exactly is the magic spell that xfce edition is using to work on my hardware?

I'm on a toshiba laptop with what windows calls an Atheros AR5005G wifi card. The model on the toshiba is an l35-S2161.
80 gig hard drive, gig and a half of ram, celeron M.

[merlwiz79]

Besides wicd, it has an extra package that is one of these.(not sure which one)

• linux-restricted-modules-generic
• linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22-14-generic
• linux-restricted-modules-common

[unreal223]

Thanks, since posting this I have installed mint, and fully updated it. So far everything actually seems to work(YAY!).
I noticed a few updates for network manager and other things so maybe there was an update since the first time I tried it that fixed it.