I just currently installed ZenWalk 4.6.1. I am new to everything in linux as an OS I only know a few unix commands to do homework over an SSH.
I have a Hawkings HU54G rev 2 USB wifi connection on my pc.
I asked Hawkings for help and they replied " Search google for zydas 1211 chipset driver for linux.
this adapter use zydas 1211 chipset. "

Once doing that I found a .tar and a user guide.
I am stuck on step 1 of the user guide of making sure my kernal was compiled before working... I went into src/usr/linux-2.6.21.3 directly and tried the follow commands to compile with the following errors. Any suggestions?

taylor[linux-2.6.21.3]$ make menucongfig
HOSTCC scripts/basic/fixdep
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:399: fatal error: opening dependency file scripts/basic/.fixdep.d: Permission denied
compilation terminated.
make[2]: *** [scripts/basic/fixdep] Error 1
make[1]: *** [scripts_basic] Error 2
make: *** No rule to make target `menucongfig'. Stop.
taylor[linux-2.6.21.3]$ make config
HOSTCC scripts/basic/fixdep
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:399: fatal error: opening dependency file scripts/basic/.fixdep.d: Permission denied
compilation terminated.
make[1]: *** [scripts/basic/fixdep] Error 1
make: *** [scripts_basic] Error 2
taylor[linux-2.6.21.3]$ make enuconfig
HOSTCC scripts/basic/fixdep
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:399: fatal error: opening dependency file scripts/basic/.fixdep.d: Permission denied
compilation terminated.
make[1]: *** [scripts/basic/fixdep] Error 1
make: *** [scripts_basic] Error 2
taylor[linux-2.6.21.3]$ make xconfig
HOSTCC scripts/basic/fixdep
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:399: fatal error: opening dependency file scripts/basic/.fixdep.d: Permission denied
compilation terminated.
make[1]: *** [scripts/basic/fixdep] Error 1
make: *** [scripts_basic] Error 2
taylor[linux-2.6.21.3]$

bump for anyone...

Typo - try "make menuconfig"

link for the guide?

Here are some links to the guide for the wifi driver.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=re...N4RjWFluAsSSNQ
above is googles link

here is the actual ftp link for the pdf
ftp://ftp.a-link.com/wl54usb/v6.19.0...uide_Linux.pdf

Any suggestions on how to manually do this? Is there a application that I could get that would automatically do the things I am trying to manually do?

That's a fairly significant update process - and no, I don't think there will be an automated way of doing it.

Presuming you have the full source (I haven't tried Zenwalk, so I don't know), and the appropriate links, you shouldn't need to do any of that initial bit . Think of it as "backgound".
The permissions issue is a bit of a problem though - that shouldn't happen. Kernels are generally compiled under a user logon, and only the final copy to system-wide directories is done under higher priviledge.

Start at section 1.4 - use this to do the USB check "lsmod | grep -i hci" (it'll be more readable).
I suspect you'll hit the permissions problem with the module make as well - if so, prefix any command you issue with "sudo" - as in "sudo make".

Good luck - I suspect you'll need a lot of patience.