If /usr/src/linux/.config contains CONFIG_PCMCIA=y or =m, the pcmcia-cs kernel modules will not be built. If the kernel PCMCIA support is built later, the kernel pcmcia_core will conflict with pcmcia-cs pcmcia_core. Furthermore, the pcmcia-cs documentation does not sufficiently explain that pcmcia-cs should be used completely separately from the kernel. We should make a note, possibly in pkg_postinst() that you have to disable kernel PCMCIA support before merging pcmcia-cs, if it is enabled.
So we basically need to choose between kernel PCMCIA and pcmcia-cs PCMCIA? They absolutely can't coexist?
The problem seems to be that: 1) If the kernel PCMCIA support is enabled, the modules in pcmcia-cs are not built. This means that some wlan cards (such as the SMC ones) will not function, since these drivers do not exist in the mainstream kernels. 2) If the modules in the pcmcia-cs package are forced to be compiled, these drivers are incompatible with the PCMCIA core provided by the kernel. The kernel advocates using yenta_socket, which does not work with the wlan driver. If your driver is available in the mainstream kernel, it is of course preferrable that the pcmcia-cs package does not bother to built extra modules; the pcmcia-cs user-space utilities is the only thing you'd want from the pcmcia-cs package. The best solution would be if the mainstream kernel included all PCMCIA drivers from the pcmcia-cs package (maybe Marcelo will allow them in). Failing that, the general solution is to disable PCMCIA in the kernel tree, and have the pcmcia-cs ebuild do some sanity-checking and warn if it detects that the kernel it is compiled against has PCMCIA configured.
I'm thinking from the perspective of our boot cd. You'd recommend using pcmcia-cs modules for now?
Definitely. There are simply too few drivers supplied with the mainstream kernel.
This has been fixed in the new -r16 build cd, which will be uploaded to ibiblio as soon as it comes back up.
