All,

Ok, I know I can use drakconf or drakconnect in order to ease setting up a network card. Allows me to choose fixed IP or DHCP, and whether or not to start it up at boot time.

(and I've been able to uninstall the 75dpi fonts without wrecking it . . why is the 75dpi package required? It even works in X without that!)

Anyway, my question is, if I did NOT have any such utilities, assuming I know:

1) The driver module used for the ethernet card in question

2) the eth number (ie: is it eth0, eth1, or whatever)

3) Whether I want DHCP or a fixed IP

how would I go about manually setting up the network card, and further how would I tell the system whether or not to start it on bootup? What files contain this information?

I've tried briefly following the boot scripts, but haven't made headway.

The scripts youre looking for are in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.

ifcfg-ethn will contain the config info for that interface.
Also see /etc/sysconfig/network.

You can also use linuxconf from the console to set all your network settings.