Newbie source build question for wireless network

[Andrew Scott <andrew.scott@nextstepsolutions.co.uk>]

Hi,

Newbie question so don't laugh.

I'm connecting an old laptop to my Mac Airport wireless network using a 
Lucent Orinoco Gold PCMCIA card.

In order to do so, I need to compile PCMCIA source and the Orinoco cards 
source code.
The Orinoco install instructions involve un-tarring the cards source 
code into the pcmcia source code directory and the making the code.

So far, so good.

My problem is that I don't want to install debian onto a machine, 
specifically for its fantastic package management abilities only to 
break it by messing around with source code builds outside of the 
apt/dselect sandbox.
Especially as making the pcmcia source might install into non-debian 
standard locations on the file system.

Anybody have any advice?

Andy