I have a Thinkpad T23 with builtin WLAN adapter.
lspci: 0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset (rev 01)

I'm running Ubuntu 5.10 (kernel 2.6.12-10-386) which autodetects the card and loads the modules hermes, orinoco and orinoco_pci.

Basically this setup works, but after a while (5-60 min) it gets unstable. That means, it looses the connection.
This happens even with perfect signal and it happens in different networks.
Today I booted Gentoo a 2006.0 live-CD to see if it also happens with another distro. Same behaviour there (kernel 2.6.15)

I wonder about this because Prism 2.5 seems to be well supported in Linux of what I've read.

Of what I understood it should be possible to use other drivers.
I can't figure out how to do this. I tried to unload the 3 modules mentioned above and to load the module hostap_pci, but nothing happend. Which alternative drivers exist and how do I load them?

Also I've read that the firmware version has big influence. How can I find out which version I have / how to update it?

Thanks for every advice!

i'm also running ubuntu 5.10 and i've noticed with my atheros card every few mins it completely refreshes the signal. basically it disconnects and reconnects to see if it can get a better connection. i have wondered if this is something built into ubuntu at times. it doesn't seem to effect performance much unless i happen to open the browser at the exact moment it's refreshing.