I think your going to run into problems with this laptop.
Also-I want to say that your going to be missing proper power management
support with the ath5k cards. This is 2nd hand info as I haven't looked into
it. However it comes from a reliable source. I'm not 100% sure though it is
applicable to all the ath5k compatible cards or just some.
2nd while I think our mini pcie card won't work either it might be a better
choice unless you can confirm the other card will work (is white listed):
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-mini-pcie
I know you said you don't want to go with a USB wifi card. However I think it
may be your only option. You can flash the BIOS on some ThinkPads to
eliminate the white list issue. I wouldn't recommend it however. This is
potentially dangerous and you could brick the system.
