Thus we arrive at the first package referenced in the title of this column. The fact that through some alchemy it can now be made to work is a nice feature, though one I'm unlikely to use, because after the installation I can put the CD reader back in the Thinkpad and Linux will see it just fine. I wasn't at all surprised that it wasn't automagically recognized. It's a little bit of a weirdo, running off an Ataptec card or clone and otherwise odd. No other operating system recognizes it right off the bat absent the intervention of drivers from Panasonic.
Reliability is assured only by shutting down, inserting the card, and starting back up again.
I'm online right now. I can yank the card, replace it with a different one, and I'm online again. No shutting down. I pull the card, and pcmcia-cs unloads the module for the card and shuts down the networking on the machine. I put in a different card, and pcmcia-cs loads the module and restarts the network, and I'm back online.