as you can see from your error log /var/log/messages:
it's complainning about your ds.o and yenta_socket.o is not being loaded for no reason. you could manual start them by become root first using "su -" then type "modprobe ds yenta_socket" see if it helps. If there is still errors, i recommend you to upgrade your
kernel-pcmcia-cs-3.1.31-13 to the latest version.
you can download it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pcmcia-cs/

Here's what I come up with. Strangely, it wouldn't work with me su'ed in, but would with me running natively as Root (even under X-KDE! ). It's gonna be a big post.

[root@portable root]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (AGP disabled) (rev 02)
00:02.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1250 (rev 02)
00:02.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1250 (rev 02)
00:03.0 VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2160 [MagicGraph 128XD] (rev 01)
00:06.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 01)
00:06.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:06.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:06.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 01)
[root@portable root]# cat /proc/pci
PCI devices found:
Bus 0, device 0, function 0:
Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (AGP disabled) (rev 2).
Master Capable. Latency=64.
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0x0 [0xfffffff].
Bus 0, device 2, function 0:
CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1250 (rev 2).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. Latency=168. Min Gnt=192.Max Lat=3.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0x50000000 [0x50000fff].
Bus 0, device 2, function 1:
CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1250 (#2) (rev 2).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. Latency=168. Min Gnt=192.Max Lat=3.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0x51000000 [0x51000fff].
Bus 0, device 3, function 0:
VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2160 [MagicGraph 128XD] (rev 1).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. No bursts. Min Gnt=16.Max Lat=255.
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0x48000000 [0x48ffffff].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0x49000000 [0x491fffff].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0x49400000 [0x494fffff].
Bus 0, device 6, function 0:
Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 1).
Bus 0, device 6, function 1:
IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 1).
Master Capable. Latency=32.
I/O at 0xfcf0 [0xfcff].
Bus 0, device 6, function 2:
USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 1).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. Latency=48.
I/O at 0x9000 [0x901f].
Bus 0, device 6, function 3:
Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 1).
IRQ 9.
[root@portable root]# rpm -qa | grep pcmcia
kernel-pcmcia-cs-3.1.31-13
[root@portable root]# dmesg
Linux version 2.4.20-8 (bhcompile@porky.devel.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)) #1 Thu Mar 13 17:54:28 EST 2003
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000005fd0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 0000000005fd0000 - 0000000005fdf000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 0000000005fdf000 - 0000000005fe0000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 0000000005fe0000 - 0000000006000000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fffe0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
95MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 24528
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 20432 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
IBM machine detected. Enabling interrupts during APM calls.
Kernel command line: auto BOOT_IMAGE=linux ro BOOT_FILE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 hdd=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/123
ide_setup: hdd=ide-scsi
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 265.270 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 529.20 BogoMIPS
Memory: 92504k/98112k available (1347k kernel code, 4456k reserved, 999k data, 132k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: After generic, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel Pentium II (Deschutes) stepping 02
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd880, last bus=0
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX [8086/7110] at 00:06.0
Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers.
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
Starting kswapd
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
pty: 2048 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306
NET4: Frame Diverter 0.46
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
PIIX4: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:06.1
PIIX4: chipset revision 1
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfcf0-0xfcf7, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbMA
hda: IBM-DTNA-22160, ATA DISK drive
hdb: SANYO CRD-S372B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
blk: queue c03c9f40, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: 4233600 sectors (2168 MB) w/96KiB Cache, CHS=525/128/63, DMA
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 8192 bind 16384)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 145k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 132k freed
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 17:59:01 Mar 13 2003
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:06.2
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x9000, IRQ 11
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,1), internal journal
Adding Swap: 217720k swap-space (priority -1)
Soundblaster audio driver Copyright (C) by Hannu Savolainen 1993-1996
sb: No ISAPnP cards found, trying standard ones...
SB 3.02 detected OK (220)
This sound card may not be fully Sound Blaster Pro compatible.
In many cases there is another way to configure OSS so that
it works properly with OSS (for example in 16 bit mode).
Please ignore this message if you _really_ have a SB Pro. //sound card works, but aRTs don't, another story...
hdb: ATAPI 24X CD-ROM drive, 256kB Cache, DMA
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
parport0: PC-style at 0x3bc [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
parport0: PC-style at 0x3bc [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
lp0: console ready
udf: registering filesystem
UDF-fs DEBUG lowlevel.c:57:udf_get_last_session: XA disk: no, vol_desc_start=0
UDF-fs DEBUG super.c:1421:udf_read_super: Multi-session=0
UDF-fs DEBUG super.c:410:udf_vrs: Starting at sector 16 (2048 byte sectors)
UDF-fs DEBUG super.c:437:udf_vrs: ISO9660 Primary Volume Descriptor found
UDF-fs DEBUG super.c:446:udf_vrs: ISO9660 Volume Descriptor Set Terminator found
UDF-fs: No VRS found

This is everything. I don't see where cardmgr is starting, but when I run cardmgr, it (after a short but noticeable delay) gives me another prompt but nothing appears to have happened. No beeps, no changes to demesg, nothing.

Here's what I'm geting when I try to do this stuff manually.

cardctl ident: no pcmcia driver in /proc/devices (strange, I've had pcmcia on this laptop under RH 9 before...
cardmgr again, no errors, nothing seems to happen.
/etc/pcmcia start=bash: /etc/pcmcia: is a directory

One more thing: since I'm a newbie and the package is a tarbal, I need to know where to put it, how to distribute it, and what else I need to do to make it work. Sorry about all the trouble though.

this is really strange to me.
1) if it's a file with .tar.gz extension , it means it is compress using tar ball compression.
you could decompress it by "tar -xzvf file.tar.gz" or "tar-xvf file.tar".
or if the driver was written completely, you could turn it to a rpm by "rpmbuild --rebuild file.tar.gz"

not sure if you meant the pcmcia driver you downloaded was a tarball file. then you might try to find a rpm from www.findrpm.net which might be easier to install by "rpm -Uvh package.rpm".

can't tell you step by step. there is many place which states the basic, the best place was www.google.com

also, for your pcmcia port. i might think it as a resource conflict problem. try to disable your IrD port. then restart see what happens.
if nothing, then you might want to check wether if your pcmcia service was configured to start after you start your machine. by using "redhat-config-services" as root.

Have found a fix for my pcmcia problem documented here:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/...g.cgi?id=28348

Here's the relevate excerpt:

"This
problem can be fixed by changing the BIOS setting for the PC Card. AS THE
COMPUTER IS BEING REBOOTED OR TURNED ON, hold the <ESC> key down. The computer
will prompt you to press the F1 key - do so. This will bring up the System Setup
utility.

Press the <PgDn> key to go to page 2/2 of values. Press the Down Arrow key to
advance the cursor to the "PC CARD" Controller Mode value. It probably will be
set to "Auto-Selected". Press the space bar until it reads "CardBus/16-bit".

Then press the <End> button to exit the utility and respond "Y" when asked "Are
you sure?". The system will reboot and you should have no problems with PCMCIA
services."

Now yenta_socket and ds load fine. However, if the 3com card is removed during bootup, the system freezes when it is inserted, and if it is left in during boot the system freezes after "Loading apm daemon ..." The Linksys card does not freeze the system but still working on getting ndiswrapper configured.

Hi,
Thanks for the tip on bios settings. Athough I am struggling with a Winlinux 2003 that doesnt seem to have a make system, it did help overcome some mouse problems I had with it rejecting two mice. the touchpad amd the usb mouse.

Anyone have any tips for this situation of mine:
I hav winlinus2003 and tryng to get my Netgear 411 in a pcmcia slot to be recognized. I downloaded the tar'd pcmcia tar file. Unfortunately nothing works, as I dont seem to have a Make system installed in the free version I downloaded. Can I just install a 'module or driver somewhere? without having to 'make' or is it easy to install a make system.?
thanks in advance
Stu

I have the same Netgear FA411 card, but I have no PCMCIA interphase at the moment. I know on the CD are those same files that's in the tarbal. This is RedHat though.

btw: Isn't WinLinux made by MacroShaft? That would be your problem right there. What are you doing running something with the name of Windows in it? I bet you can download the make system from Freshmeat, Icewalkers, or somebody. It should be in there (proving once again that you shouldn't trust a MacroShaft product. ), as well as being easily downloadable. Is WinLinux a Posix-Linux like RedHat or Debian? What's their website?

I would like to get aholt of Vector Linux, but have been unable to do so. Hopefully, once I do, I can get that problem cleared.

Try this.