I recently got a SMC wireless PCMCIA card (SMC2635) for my knoppix 3.3 laptop. Card works in same laptop when I boot into W$ XP. It is a basic 11 Mbps wireless card. I asked them about and they sent me a linux driver (RH 7.3, RH 8, and the source). I tried to compile the source on the Knoppix box to produce a module for my kernel (2.4.22-xfs).
I run make like the instructions say and it does not error out and I get a but when I try to
insmod 2635.o
I get a message that says 2635.0 kernel mismttch
2635.o was compiled for 2.4.19 while this kernel is 2.4.22-xfs

I can force load it with insmod -f 2635.o but it says that will taint the kernel.

After that I can see the loaded module with lsmod | grep 2635
it returns
2635 63304 0 (unused)

I can then run the wlcardconfig and it now sees a wireless card and says
Configuration of wireless parameters for eth1
(the wired connection is eth0)

I then get asked a bunch of questions and I answer all that I can
(ESSID, channel, encrytion string)

after it is done I type
iwconfig
and it says lo, eth0, eth 1 no wireless extensions
and I still can't connect..

How do I know if this module is working and if need be how to compile for my kernel.
Thanks
Ken

since I'm a newb I can't help much ... but I can tell you what I tried last time I had debian workin:

1)download the winxp drivers for your card
2)download ndiswrapper (version .5 is wierd... I used version .4 before and it was perfect ;-))
3)get the wireless tools (if you don't have them already)
4)now just follow the ndiswrapper instructions and you should be fine