Am I able to just install my wireless PCMCIA card's drivers and such w/o screwing up my wired network card in Linux? I have a laptop, that I use at home w/ a wired connection and I have a wireless card for when I'm out and about roaming.. Do I need some sort of other program to handle this or will the OS figure out which one I'm using? (..don't think I'm not adventurous, but quite frankly, I've been having enough problems learning Linux and I'd hate to loose my 'net connection so I can read forums like LQ to fix things. )

Can I hotswap w/ Linux like I used to do w/ windoze?

What type of card do you have and what distro are you using?

You should have no problems. I have a similar setup, and for simplicities sake I have both devices active on boot, with wired coming up first. This way, if the wired is not connected, it won't get an IP or anything and the wireless with come up. You will also be able to hotswap, you'll just have to take down the interface you're not using. I'm not sure how the automated things are working now, I do mine manually (it's just one command). You may have some issues just getting your wifi card up and running, there are some cards that can be kinda tricky (broadcom grrr). Either way, you're definatly sure to learn alot