How do I go about installing a dmfe driver, for what appears to be a Davicom 9102 ethernet card? (The dmfe driver works flawlessly on the Ubuntu dapper live-cd, whereas in my installed version, it uses tulip which disconnects after ~30 seconds.)

I think it must be a 9102 because in Device Manager, you can see these:
info.udi = /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_1282_9102
pci.product_id = 37122 (0x9102)
pci.vendor_id = 4738 (0x1282)

I'm new at messing around with drivers; I downloaded the code for linux 2.6, available at this directory on the Davicom site:
/eng/download/Driver/driver_9102a.htm

I think I have done the correct legwork. But I don't know exactly how to use that code, or patch it, which is what I suspect I have to do.

kernel 2.6 already have dm9102 u dont need other driver

proceed # dmesg | grep 9102

or # locate 9102

$ dmesg | grep 9102
[4294722.254000] eth0: Davicom DM9102 at pci0000:02:08.0, 00:08:a1:22:97:52, irq 185.

# dmesg | grep 9102
[4294687.706000] eth0: Davicom DM9102/DM9102A rev 49 at 0001dc00, 00:08:A1:22:97:52, IRQ 185.

(first post was from system using dmfe, this post is from system using tulip)

Well anyway if it's true that the new kernel includes the dmfe driver, how do i configure Ubuntu Dapper Drake to use THAT instead of tulip driver? Something about my system is definitely dropping the connection every ~30 seconds, using the tulip driver.

First lets see what kernel you are using, I think with Ubuntu they use sudo;
sudo uname -a
Lets see what kernels are available;
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-cache search kernel
or
sudo apt-cache search kernel-image
sudo apt-get install kernel-image-whatever
Something like that...

Oh you know what? It is fixed now (thanks to: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=186430); Both dmfe and tulip were ALWAYS there; I just needed to activate them in the right ways...

I guess it's a common problem with Davicom ethernet adapters, with Ubuntu Dapper Drake;

I merely needed to blacklist tulip, by adding the line:
blacklist tulip

to the file:
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

and add the line:
dmfe

to the file:
/etc/modules

And reboot, and voila, it works, and i learned a bit about modules and modprobe, as a side-benefit Man, working with Linux is good for the soul.

Good Going, You now hooked, enjoy the freedom...