ioctl[...]: No such device

[John -]

I'm trying, and failing, to get a pc card working in my ThinkPad 600X
running Debian sid with a 2.6.16 home-made kernel. The card is identified:

root@~# pccardctl ident
Socket 1:
  product info: "IBM Corporation", "IBM High Rate Wireless LAN PC Card", "Version 01.01", ""
  manfid: 0x0156, 0x0002
  function: 6 (network)

But otherwise it seems invisible: when unplugged and plugged in again,
the only response is:

pccard: card ejected from slot 1
pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 1
pccard: registering new device pcmcia:1.0

(However, when I put back the wired card, it is identified as well: 
PCI ...
eth0 ...)

"ifup wlan0" gets nothing beyond sixteen (16) different ways of
filling in the ... in "ioctl[...]: No such device". The most
important, perhaps, is the one that shows up in response to

strace /etc/init.d/hostapd restart
[snip]
 waitpid(-1, Starting advanced IEEE 802.11 management: hostapdioctl[PRISM2_IOCTL_PRISM2_PARAM]: No s
rmdir[ctrl_interface]: No such file or directory
...failed.

I'm guessing that the problem is something simple and basic that keeps
the card  from being set up from  the start. I won't  inflict the long
list of things that I've tried without success, including reinstalling
hostap*,  moving working  .conf files  from another  laptop,  and even
downgrading.

Please accept my apologies for what is probably a dumb newbie
question, but I'm stumped.

TIA.

-- 
JohnRChamplin at columbus.rr.com
====================================================
PGP key 1024D/99421A63 2005-01-05
EE51 79E9 F244 D734 A012 1CEC 7813 9FE9 9942 1A63
gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 99421A63
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap/attachments/20060706/7460f527/attachment.pgp