Laptop PCMCIA card (re)detection-again

I'm using a Knoppix 3.2 install on a laptop, which has been really cool & instructive after being a RedHat user for a few years. The only prob I have is when I change PCMCIA cards - I only have one working slot (hey, the notebook was free). I just changed out the modem card for a 3C5974 LAN card that formerly worked fine in the same machine. No beeps, nothing. Even tho the right module is loaded on startup, it's not associating with the card. Kudzu seems to want to delete all my config files, network card or no, and my primitive attempts at restarting the networking & PCMCIA services have yielded no joy. So:

* What tools are available in Debian to pick up new/modified hardware?
* What can I try to get the beast to see the LAN card again?

I'm running a 2.4.22 kernel I compiled - are there any compilation-specific options that need to be enabled, or alternatively, will a later kernel work better?

I solved my problem, after I cooled down a bit ...

I recompiled my kernel again, adding ISA & EISA PNP support, but probably more specifically support for PCMCIA I82092 & I 82365 bridges, as well as IDE multimode, this after getting "status=0x51" errors when trying to mount a CD.