I'm a COMPLETE linux beginner.

When I try to configure my D-Link dwl-g650 wireless card with 'Network Configuration' on RedHat Linux 9 I get the following error message:

'pcnet_cs device does not seem to be present, delaying initialization'

I have read somewhere that there is a problem in the order in which the pc card socket initializes itself and that's why it doesn't find the wireless card.

PLEASE, please can somebody tell me (step-by-step for a total beginner who's used to lovely, helpful Macs!) how i go about fixing this problem.

...

Well RHL9 is quite old and for the most part un-supported now. One of the few places left is Fedora Legacy; http://www.fedoralegacy.org/ you may get lucky by downloading the kernel-pcmcia-cs-3.1.31-16.i386.rpm from the FC1 updates directory.

Or you might try biulding from the src.rpm (pcmcia-cs-3.2.7-1.5.src.rpm) from the FC2 directory.

Or you may want to use a newer version of Linux, keeping in the Red Hat family may I suggest;

FC4 http://fedora.redhat.com/
CentOS http://www.centos.org/