cardmgr "SIOCSIFFLAGS: no such device" for laptop

Seeking PCMCIA WiFi adapter help...

I've tried the following systems with both a MSFT MN520 and
a Linksys WPC11 V2.5: (Knoppix 3.3-2004-02-09 and
3.3-2003-11-19)

Dell Latitude C610
Dell Inspiron 8200
Dell Inspiron 8500
Compaq Presario 1675

In all cases, during CD boot, the card is correctly detected by cardmgr,
but eventually fails with the dread 'SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such device' error. I've googled till I can't google no more, and followed a prior thread
in this forum that gave a manual procedure to config it...all to no avail.

Is there anything else I can do ? The orig poster of the mentioned thread
gave up and bought a Netgear 401, but those appear to be discontinued...

Any help much appreciated...