Orinoco / Hermes PCMCIA Card fails w/ 9.10

Prologue: I love Ubuntu, and am ultra-impressed w/ all of you who create and upkeep Ubuntu. Kudos.

The Problem: My Orinoco (Buffalo brand) card worked under 9.02 and previous versions of Ubuntu. I upgraded to 9.2. Two kernels are installed by default, apparently, one (the *.28 kernel) works but disables my sound card and laptop synaptic touch pad. (I use it right now w/ an external USB mouse, but this isn't acceptable.)

I want the newer (*.32 ?) kernel to work... and it does w/ sound card and touch pad. It does not, however, power up the Orinoco card. Here are some output lines I garnered which may help:

lshw returned this from each kernel (older kernel -- card works -- first):

  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: eth1
       serial: 00:02:2d:3c:3b:ea
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=orinoco driverversion=0.15 firmware=Lucent/Agere 6.16 ip=192.168.11.100 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11b
jon@jon-laptop:~$

---
AND THIS IS FROM THE LATER (NEWER) KERNEL (only took the bit re eth1 -- the orinoco) -- the card is present but fails to fully configure:

  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: eth1
       serial: 00:02:2d:3c:3b:ea
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes

Note the fail on the last line to configure the device in the second kernel above.

Portion of dmesg file (focusing on the newer kernel now) showing ultimate failure of orinoco card to load:

[ 52.444907] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0
[ 52.680284] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: cs: IO port probe 0x100-0x3af: clean.
[ 52.684513] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: cs: IO port probe 0x3e0-0x4ff: clean.
[ 52.686190] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: cs: IO port probe 0x820-0x8ff: clean.
[ 52.687711] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: cs: IO port probe 0xc00-0xcf7: clean.
[ 52.690142] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: cs: IO port probe 0xa00-0xaff: clean.
[ 52.691888] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
[ 52.788195] pcmcia 0.0: pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0
[ 53.126424] orinoco 0.15 (David Gibson <email address hidden>, Pavel Roskin <email address hidden>, et al)
[ 53.240887] orinoco_cs 0.15 (David Gibson <email address hidden>, Pavel Roskin <email address hidden>, et al)
[ 53.304493] ALI 5451 0000:00:06.0: enabling device (0005 -> 0007)
[ 53.305398] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK7] enabled at IRQ 5
[ 53.305412] PCI: setting IRQ 5 as level-triggered
[ 53.305431] ALI 5451 0000:00:06.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LNK7] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
[ 53.381944] eth1: Hardware identity 0001:0002:0004:0002
[ 53.382087] eth1: Station identity 001f:0001:0006:0010
[ 53.382101] eth1: Firmware determined as Lucent/Agere 6.16
[ 53.385881] orinoco_cs 0.0: firmware: requesting agere_sta_fw.bin
[ 53.484288] eth1: Attempting to download firmware agere_sta_fw.bin
[ 53.484336] hermes_dld: AUX enable returned 0
[ 53.486077] hermes_dld: AUX disable returned 0
[ 53.486087] hermes_dld: Actual PDA length 998, Max allowed 1000
[ 53.486097] eth1: Read PDA returned 0
[ 53.486115] orinoco_cs 0.0: firmware: requesting agere_sta_fw.bin
[ 53.509296] eth1: Cannot find firmware agere_sta_fw.bin
[ 53.509414] eth1: Hardware identity 0001:0002:0004:0002
[ 53.509554] eth1: Station identity 001f:0001:0006:0010
[ 53.509568] eth1: Firmware determined as Lucent/Agere 6.16
[ 53.509578] eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported
[ 53.509587] eth1: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported
[ 53.509596] eth1: WEP supported, 104-bit key
[ 53.509726] eth1: MAC address 00:02:2d:3c:3b:ea
[ 53.509869] eth1: Station name "HERMES I"
[ 53.510591] eth1: ready
[ 53.513174] eth1: orinoco_cs at 0.0, irq 3, io 0x0100-0x013f
[ 55.521428] type=1505 audit(1257105983.026:12): operation="profile_replace" pid=717 name=/usr/share/gdm/guest-session/Xsession
[ 56.156958] type=1505 audit(1257105983.662:13): operation="profile_replace" pid=718 name=/sbin/dhclient3
[ 56.157779] type=1505 audit(1257105983.662:14): operation="profile_replace" pid=718 name=/usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-client.action
[ 56.158144] type=1505 audit(1257105983.662:15): operation="profile_replace" pid=718 name=/usr/lib/connman/scripts/dhclient-script
[ 56.184180] AC'97 1 does not respond - RESET
[ 56.208152] AC'97 1 access is not valid [0xffffffff], removing mixer.
[ 56.208195] ali mixer 1 creating error.
[ 63.638650] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready
[ 63.713512] eth0: DSPCFG accepted after 0 usec.
[ 63.713750] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[ 64.389810] eth1: New link status: Disconnected (0002)
[ 64.660179] hermes @ 00010100: Timeout waiting for command 0x0002 completion.
[ 64.660179] eth1: Unable to disable port while reconfiguring card
[ 64.660179] eth1: Resetting instead...
[ 65.262286] eth1: Attempting to download firmware agere_sta_fw.bin
[ 65.262341] hermes_dld: AUX enable returned 0
[ 65.264203] hermes_dld: AUX disable returned 0
[ 65.264213] hermes_dld: Actual PDA length 998, Max allowed 1000
[ 65.264225] eth1: Read PDA returned 0
[ 65.264246] orinoco_cs 0.0: firmware: requesting agere_sta_fw.bin
[ 65.284006] eth1: Cannot find firmware agere_sta_fw.bin
[ 65.284305] eth1: orinoco_reset: Error -2 re-initializing firmware
[ 65.284415] eth1: Device has been disabled!

I greatly appreciate any help which can be offered to rectifiy this.

Thank you.

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: i386
CheckboxSubmission: 0d6b510793cea223baf06e3e5f72d385
CheckboxSystem: b845c366ea09c60efa3a45c1b5b21525
Date: Tue Nov 3 09:02:32 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/desktopcouch/desktopcouch-service
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.6
Package: desktopcouch 0.5-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/desktopcouch/desktopcouch-service
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.28-16.55-generic
PythonArgs: ['/usr/lib/desktopcouch/desktopcouch-service']
SourcePackage: desktopcouch
Title: desktopcouch-service crashed with RuntimeError in find_port__linux()
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-16-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare