eth0 recognized but no hardware address
 

eth0 link encap:ethernet HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00
broadcast multicast mtu:1500 metric:1
rx packets:0errors :0 dropped :0 overruns :0 frame :0
tx packets :0errors :0dropped :0overruns :0 carrier:0
collisions :0 txqueue :100
rx bytes :0 (0.0 b) tx bytes :0 (0.0 b)
interrupt :11 base addr :0xde00

lsmod tells me that the correct module (sis900) for this onboard NIC is loaded. How exactly did this come to be?

What does /etc/network/interfaces say ?

which version?

Try this:

lspci

Find this line:
Ethernet controller

And paste here what you see

have u given the option og eht adress during installation as to get on its own,u can also setup this in the "setup" utility

Adding this line:

iface eth0 inet dhcp

to /etc/network/interfaces did the trick- thanks folks!

Still tho- I don't understand why it didn't have a hardware address.