Dell's true mobiles are lucent clones and the latest lucent patches are not on the 23/3 CD.

Use iwconfig / kismet / kismet_monitor to set the card to orinoco and see if it scans.

Host Ap mode would be nest for prism users - Knoppix would boot - use kismet to see if there was an AP locally - if not then it would setup as it's own AP / DHCP server (with tons of firewalling) - instant wireless network.

This could also be done on a lan - the rule being if you don't see another DHCP server then you're it