I installed command-line kismet as per
https://www.oesf.org/index.php?title=How_to...on_the_SL-6000Land it works. The snag is that it's completely unresponsive to the keyboard, neither the built-in one nor an attached usb keyboard (the latter discovered by mistake).
however, it does respond to CTRL-C to force it to quit.
I'll go try installing kismet-QT, but I am used to command-line kismet and would like to get it fixed, even if just to satisfy my curiosity about why it fails to capture the keyboard!