When booting from the live cd the following messages are displayed during autodetection:

Cardmgr[71]: starting, version is 3.2.2
Cardmgr[71]: socket 1: Bromax OEM 11 Mbps 802.11b WLAN card (Prism 2.5)
Cardmgr[71]:executing: 'modprobe prism2_cs'
Cardmgr[71]:executing './wlan-ng start wlan0'
+ simple private network setup
+ /sbin/ifconfig wlan0 up
+ SIOCSIFFLAGS No such device
+ /sbin/pump -i wlan0 > /dev/null
+ Operation failed

The lights on the wpc11 come on and two beeps are audible signifying that the card is up and functional, but nothing I've tried seems to get me on the network (a simple no wep network).

E.g. wavelan configuration (available from the Knoppix menu) says that there is no network card. Network card configuration offers me the choice of eth0 and wlan0. Selecting wlan0 and then dchp broadcast results in "operation failed".

Also, when I boot from my poor man's install none of this happens: the lights don't come on and the above commands aren't executed. Pcmcia is found, and cardmgr starts but nothing more. This surprises me as I was under the impression that a poor man's install would work identically to the live cd.