Why make-kpkg? What and Where is apt-src?

["Thomas H. George,,," <georgeacct@spininternet.com>]

I am struggling to get my wireless lan up and running using Actiontec 
USB transmitters.  To this end I changed all my sources from stable to 
testing and ran apt-get -f install linux-wlan-ng.  Now I am awash with 
instructions for setting up modules, for installing pcmcia-cs and 
rebuilding my kernel with conflicting alternate methods.

I was always perfectly happy creating a custom kernel with

   make menuconfig
   make dep
   make bzImage
   make modules
   make modules_install

and then copying the new bzImage to /boot, running lilo and rebooting. 
One set of instructions seems to indicate I can still use this approach 
using apt-src after I have downloaded pcmcia-cs.tar.gz to /usr/src and 
unpacked it.  However, apt-src is unknown on my system and apt-cache 
search apt-src can't find it.  The other approach uses make-kpkg to make 
a .deb package of my kernel which dpkg will install.  I can see this 
would be neat if I wanted to package my kernel to give to someone else 
but what advantage does it offer me?

At present I keep three kernel images - a good working version of 
2.4.18, a test version and 2.2.19-compact which works with an early 
version of mondo (the stable version of mondo and mindi does not create 
a bootable cd on my system.  mondo-archive --isodir /bkups/iso_dir does 
when the system has been booted with 2.2.19-compact.)  Detailed notes in 
bootmess.txt tell my grandchildren how to boot the system.

Bottom Line: I like my approach but will switch if make-kpkg offers 
clear advantages.  If apt-src is available and works with my approach 
this would be OK.  

The cross-references - Debian PCMCIA Card Services README file, the 
linux-wlan-ng READMe, the linux-wlan-ng README.Debian file, the README 
file for dynamically loadable modules, and the make-kpkg README file 
left me confused.  Indeed, I am not sure why I need pcmcia-cs at all 
when all I have is a usb transmitter/receiver.  Yet one of the 
instructions insists this is needed even it you have built a kernel with 
pcmcia support.

I would welcome any comments which straighten out my muddled thinking on 
these points or even a blunt forget it, do this and your wireless lan 
will work.