can't load firmware

Hello,

after one month of struggling I finally managed 
to purchare an SMC 2802W. Unfortunately, I don't
manage to load the firmware. I have a Fedora Core 2 box
(quite stock) and made a number of attempts, both with
the stock kernel and custom kernel (2.6.7) compiled
as per the README.html on prism54.org site.

What happens is like this:

#> modprobe firmware_class
#> modprobe prism54

(this gives no output and lsmod shows them)

#> ksyms
ksyms: QM_MODULES: Function not implemented

#> service network restart
Shutting down loopback interface:                          [  OK  ]
Setting network parameters:                                [  OK  ]
Bringing up loopback interface:                            [  OK  ]
Bringing up interface eth0:

prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3890'
eth0: could not upload firmware ('isl3890')

Determining IP information for eth0...
interface 'eth0' not found
Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
    SET failed on device eth0 ; Input/output error.
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
 failed.

Also, if I do:
   
#> cat /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug

sometimes I get 
/sbin/hotplug

and other times I get:
/bin/true

In any case, 

#> /sbin/hotplug
Usage: /etc/hotplug.d/default/default.hotplug AgentName [AgentArguments]
AgentName values on this system:  dasd firmware ieee1394 input net pci scsi
tape usb

#> ls -l /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/
total 192
-r--r--r--  1 root root 91020 May  8  2003 isl3880
-r--r--r--  1 root root 91020 May  8  2003 isl3890

(Ive tried with both version 1.0.3, 1.0.4 from your site and
also 1.0.14 (?) from my card package.... 

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,
Franco