Yea - I have a wg511t netgear pcmcia card, also running deb, and the driver I had to get was madwifi for it to work. It's available through the directions here
http://www.marlow.dk/site.php/tech/madwifi
Madwifi's one of the drivers supported by wpa_supplicant, though I'm not sure if madwifi supports the orinoco gold card (sorry!, I'm not even sure which chipset mine is, I'm guessing it's Atheros, but the important part is more that I got it working)
I've also been having trouble getting wpa_supplicant to work properly, but my school has a rather extensive setup for their wireless security (they went from wep to this terribly convoluted setup that almost doesnt work with linux). But I will find a way.
The way to actually use the wpa_supplicant is to run the command, usually something like
Code:
wpa_supplicant -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i ath0 -D madwifi
according to my school's website. This does something, but it generates lots of errors, about non-existent APs and such... I think it's more to do with my school than with my card or wpa_sup.
replace the /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf with the location of your file, and ath0 with the alias of your wireless card, and madwifi with the driver it uses, and give it a shot! Good luck!