Still cannot get 3com NIC to work

[Pietro Calogero <pietro@calogeros.org>]

Dear List,
My system does not identify my NIC.
The NIC in question: FEM656C-3Com Global 10-100+56k CardBus pc
Hardware: IBM ThinkPad770 with 256 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive.
PCMCIA Sockets: TI PCI-1250 CardBus controller
Kernel: 2.4.18-586tsc
PCMCIA modules installed: ds, pcmcia_core, yenta_socket

First, an excerpt of dmesg output::
tp770:~# dmesg
<snip>
Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
 options:  [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:02.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:03.0
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:02.1
Yenta IRQ list 0698, PCI irq11
Socket status: 30000020
Yenta IRQ list 0698, PCI irq11
Socket status: 30000006
cs: cb_alloc(bus 1): vendor 0x10b7, device 0x6564
PCI: Enabling device 01:00.0 (0000 -> 0003)
PCI: Enabling device 01:00.1 (0000 -> 0003)
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x1000-0x1fff: excluding 0x15e8-0x15ef
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x200-0x207 0x220-0x22f 
0x388-0x38f 0x3b8-0x3df 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
<snip>

So, SOMETHING gets detected, but it has a lot of memory exclusions. 
Maybe that is a bad sign.
Next, an attempt to identify the card using ifconfig:

tp770:~# ifconfig -a
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
         inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
         UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
         RX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
         RX bytes:1608 (1.5 KiB)  TX bytes:1608 (1.5 KiB)

tp770:~# ifconfig eth0
eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found

So, using ifconfig, nothing shows up. Then, an attempt to identify the 
card using KDE's Control Center:

KDE>Control Center>PCI>
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3CCFEM656 [id 6564] 
Cyclone Cardbus (rev 10)
Subsystem: 3Com Corporation: Unknown device 656c
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11
I/O ports at 4000 [size=256]
Memory at 10400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
Memory at 10400080 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
Expansion ROM at 10000000 [size=128]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

I don't understand what this means. KDE seems to identify the device and 
then call it (by name) an unknown device.

Am I missing a driver?
I found documentation for the 3com Vortex cards at:
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.4.18/Documentation/networking/vortex.txt.gz
and the driver it describes, 3c59x.c, includes support for the NIC in 
question. But I cannot tell if it is installed. It does not show up with 
<lsmod> and <apt-get install 3c59x> returns:
E: couldn't find package 3c59x
Same thing if I try <apt-get install vortex>
Meanwhile, the relevant modules that are listed by modconf as available 
to install are:
3c574_cs
3c589_cs
Both of these seem older. I tried installing 3c589_cs and rebooting, and 
got exactly the same diagnostic results as before.

Any suggestions?