I recently installed Fedora Core 4 on a Dell laptop, but have not been able to make the plain old 3Com PCMCIA network card work. The card is the common Megahertz card. My first question is, according to David Hinds' Linux PCMCIA Howto, I should be able to influence the IRQs used by the PCMCIA system by editing /etc/pcmcia/config.opts. Ok, I did that, but it didn't change the IRQ taken by yenta, so what is the relationship between the pcmcia service and yenta? I can't find any documentation on yenta.

Second question: if I boot using the kernel options nousb acpi=noirq noapic, then at least I don't see the usb driver on IRQ 11, but it doesn't seem to help. Prior to inserting the network card, I see this in /proc/interrupts:
CPU0
0: 725303 XT-PIC timer
1: 897 XT-PIC i8042
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
5: 0 XT-PIC NM256ZX
6: 59 XT-PIC floppy
7: 3 XT-PIC parport0
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
9: 1 XT-PIC acpi
11: 2 XT-PIC yenta, yenta
12: 4606 XT-PIC i8042
14: 14771 XT-PIC ide0
NMI: 0
ERR: 1

A few seconds after inserting the network card, I get the console message "Disabling IRQ #11" and then I see this in /proc/interrupts:
CPU0
0: 791024 XT-PIC timer
1: 985 XT-PIC i8042
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
3: 6 XT-PIC 1.0
5: 0 XT-PIC NM256ZX
6: 64 XT-PIC floppy
7: 3 XT-PIC parport0
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
9: 1 XT-PIC acpi
11: 100000 XT-PIC yenta, yenta
12: 4606 XT-PIC i8042
14: 15048 XT-PIC ide0
NMI: 0
ERR: 1

What is the significance of the 10000 for interrupt count on IRQ 11? I assume it's an error code.

Third question: below is the message log after inserting the card. It seems to have enough information to troubleshoot the problem, but I can't figure it out. What is the relationship between the card and yenta? I think a successful setup would have eth0 on its own interrupt, or on IRQ 11, so does that mean the card gets its own interrupt separate from yenta? If so, is there some way to influence the interrupt assigned to the card, if 11 is no good? I tried changing the IRQ in the Network Configuration GUI, but I don't know if that's actually supposed to work. I tried changing it to 10 and then to 3, no difference in behavior. I've seen the "nobody cared" message in dozens of posts, but no poster has ever explained what it means, is it a good thing that nobody cared, or a bad thing? Does it mean IRQ 11 was probed and nobody responded, even though yenta was sitting on it?

Jul 26 18:46:08 localhost kernel: cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
Jul 26 18:46:08 localhost cardmgr[1378]: socket 1: 3Com/Megahertz 3CXEM556 Ethernet/Modem
Jul 26 18:46:08 localhost kernel: eth0: 3Com 3c589, io 0x300, irq 3, hw_addr 00:00:86:12:E2:67
Jul 26 18:46:08 localhost kernel: 8K FIFO split 5:3 Rx:Tx, auto xcvr
Jul 26 18:46:08 localhost kernel: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 11) is a 16550A
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: irq 11: nobody cared!
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c01516f4>] __report_bad_irq+0x24/0x7f
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<d09527fb>] yenta_interrupt+0xa/0x23 [yenta_socket]
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c01517c6>] note_interrupt+0x59/0x83
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c0150a8a>] __do_IRQ+0x201/0x367
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c0105b1d>] do_IRQ+0x4a/0x82
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: =======================
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<d0a1ea89>] mld_ifc_timer_expire+0x2b/0x2d [ipv6]
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c0103c0e>] common_interrupt+0x1a/0x20
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c01282cc>] __do_softirq+0x2c/0x8a
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c0105c29>] do_softirq+0x3e/0x42
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: =======================
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c0105b24>] do_IRQ+0x51/0x82
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c0103c0e>] common_interrupt+0x1a/0x20
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c024a446>] acpi_processor_idle+0x10e/0x24c
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c01010a6>] cpu_idle+0x34/0x4c
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c042472a>] start_kernel+0x15f/0x1b9
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<c04242fe>] unknown_bootoption+0x0/0x1cd
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: handlers:
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<d09527f1>] (yenta_interrupt+0x0/0x23 [yenta_socket])
Jul 26 18:46:20 localhost kernel: [<d09527f1>] (yenta_interrupt+0x0/0x23 [yenta_socket])