hostap working with binary kernel?

[Praedor Atrebates]

Has anyone managed to get hostap working without rebuilding their kernel 
(using the installed kernel that came with their distro)?  I usually rebuild 
my kernel but on my laptop this takes forever (slow system) and Mandrake 9.0 
seems to all too often totally wreck the kernel during the rebuild.  

I have tried to get hostap working on my MDK 9.0 system (kernel-2.4.19-16mdk) 
for days without success.  I am stuck using yenta_socket for one thing (which 
has never worked properly for me with ANY pcmcia device) and when I 
build/install the hostap driver, all I get are timeouts, resets, ad infinitum 
in my syslog.  It worked without problem in Mandrake 8.2 with kernel-2.4.18.  
Has ANYONE gotten it working with Mandrake 9.0, default kernel and 
yenta_socket?

praedor