Hello! Thanks to everyone's help over in linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=371159, I managed to get a working install of Sarge on my ancient laptop. I did this by hooking up a 2.5" to 3.5" hard disk convertor and using the desktop to install the base part. I had to do this because I did not have any other way of booting the laptop than the hard disk.
Anyway, now I have a base system, and am quite happy. Unfourtuantely, I need to get my PCMCIA ethernet card working, and due to the way I installed it, the PCMCIA modules do not seem to be present, in addition, i think there are PCI modules there I don't need hogging memory. I need to know what drivers/modules to get & where to get them & how to load them properly. I have done a lot of internet searching, but can't quite find anything useful. My ethernet card is a d-link dfe-530tx fast ethernet card, by the way.
Thank you all!

uuummmm......try installing modconf(then run it, it will list all the categories of modules). Poke around in there. The modules that have a '+' next to them are the one's installed, the ones with a '-' next to them are not installed. hitting enter on a not installed will install it, and hitting enter on an installed one will uninstall it. I hope I've made myself clear.

well, I set up my dial up parameters, then typed pppd, then "apt-get install modconf", but it says "couldn't find package modconf". Does this package actually exist? Or is it named something else?

it worked for me. What's your sources list say? it is called modconf.

good point about the sources.list, it was commented out, probably due to the configuration utility that was running. Now i'm not sure if the modem is working or not! I will keep you posted. Thanks for your help.

Update:

re-hooked it up to the other computer (i hope that I will not break something with all these disconnections), and install mondconf, now, where are the pcmcia drivers filed under?

2nd Update:

I was put off on the wrong track by the Microsoft guy. I actually needed to install PCMCIA support first. Then the driver appered under /kernel/net/pcmcia. Unfourtuantely, the install failed, because I was doing it in a different computer. I got the error "no socket drivers loaded!" I will try this in the thinkpad (I assume the driver is on the hardisk, and not on the network?), and see what happens.



3rd update:

After installing the PCMCIA modules, the network card was automagically detected, and now I am content.