> Well, I had hoped the good advice given me would work, and I could
> then post the solution for the posterity of all the people on the
> internet who can't get their netgear fa511's working, but I have
> failed. Horribly. Now my linksys won't even work. And I've lost
> sound. I love linux, but I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that I'm
> not a competent enough computer user to use it. And with the recent
> news of a microsoft affiliated company investing $50 mil. into SCO, I
> think I might just quit using computers altogether. I have tried so
> many kernel configurations, and have tried pcmcia-cs over and over
> again.
>
> I have disabled everything that even mentions pcmcia in the kernel and
> pcmcia-cs is still insisting that pcmcia is enabled in the kernel, and
> refuses to install the drivers. I've tried trusting the kernel and
> unisntalling pcmica-cs, and manually loading the relevent modules and
> it never works. Can anyone tell my why pcmcia-cs thinks I have pcmcia
> enabled? I'm seriously bummed here. My favorite OS hates me. Maybe
> I'll try VMS.

Hi Aric,

Well I imagine that sound is gone because you will need to re-emerge ALSA
after you rebuild you kernel. OK here is a step by step:

1) Recompile your kernel (no pcmcia support)

make mrproper (back up your old .config first... this cleans house before
a recompile)
make dep clean bzImage modules modules_install

2) emerge pcmcia-cs

3) add pcmcia to default runlevel:

rc-update add pcmcia default

4) The Netgear FA511 is supported by pcmcia with driver: tulip_cb

do the following:

cardctl ident (as root, with card in slot)

check out the manfid... in /etc/pcmcia/config I see this entry:

card "NetGear FA511 Fast Ethernet"
pci 0x1317, 0x1985
bind "tulip_cb"

if your manfid doesn't match replace with:

manfid ####, #####

Now report your system. If you recompile your kernel and don't reboot you
are not using the new kernel. Also, to get back your sound re-emerge
ALSA.

Cheers,
Jason