Networking :: Senao wifi card

I've just installed DSL on my old Compaq Concerto laptop (486-33 w/20mb RAM) with pcmcia slots. When I put my Senao wifi card in there, cardctl ident sees it correctly, but DSL always loads the orinoco_cs driver -- which it doesn't use, it's a prism2.5 chip. In my Ipaq, running familar, it always loads the hostap_cs driver, which I prefer. Or I could use the linux-wlan-ng driver, prism2_cs. With DSL, however, even after I rmmod the orinoco drivers, and modprobe the hostap_cs driver (or the prism2_cs, I've tried both over and over), when I do a ifup wlan0, it says there's no card. If I try netcardconfig, it also says there is "no supported card".
I've even gone so far as editing the /etc/pcmcia/config and config-2.4 to add this card in there -- and also to take the orinoco_cs binding away from the INTERSIL card identity in those files. Doesn't seem to matter.
So what do I have to do? And please, I need something from the command line because I don't have X working yet either, Knoppix can't seem to figure out the old Compaq video -- it needs a cpq_avga driver which I haven't found yet.

Well, this is weird. After editing the /etc/pcmcia/config and config-2.4 to change the Intersil cards settings from orinoco_cs to prism2_cs (I wanted hostap_cs but that got nothing at all) I now see DSL loading the prism2_cs driver (also removing it when I take out the card) but still no wifi. Now when I do ifup wlan0 (and yes I added the correct wlan0 entry to /etc/network/interfaces) I get this:

SIOCGIFFLAGS: No such device
wlanctl-ng: no such device
Failed to enable the device, exitcode=1
run-parts: /etc/network/if-preup.d/linux-wlan-ng_pre-up exited with return code=1

How can there be "no such device" when cardctl ident gives the exact identity. And why doesn't hostap_cs work at all?

Gee, this is getting even weirder. I just noticed that dsl is also loading ndiswrapper everytime prism2_cs gets loaded. Why in the world would they want to try to use ndiswrapper for a perfectly good linux module like prism2_cs from the linux-wlan-ng project?
I grepped for ndiswrapper as many *conf files as I could and deleted the "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" from /etc/modutils/ndiswrapper and modules.conf and /lib/modules/modules.conf, but it still won't work. Doesn't add ndiswrapper anymore, but doesn't work either. How come there's no wlan.agent in /etc/hotplug?
I'm beginning to think dsl is not ready for prime-time, maybe I better install straight debian on this box. I really like the "small" idea, really just want embedded debian on this old 486, but dsl is starting to seem too much like windoze.
Is there any hope for this? I know debian will work (even redhat did), it's just fat.

If you want Debian, get Debian.

I am sure that you can slim it down by carefully choosing the packages for installation.

Even if your final install gets too bloated, you can always apt-get remove any stuff that you want to uninstall.

Quote (cbagger01 @ Feb. 23 2006,12:48)

Yes, well, I already have debian, on 3 other machines. I was hoping with dsl to have a more or less embedded version of debian for an old 486 laptop, but am finding it not working well enough for that. No docs, no editable config files for X?

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