I just formatted a Win95 computer and installed Debian on it. Now, the NIC is detected properly. (Its a DLink card. All cards on other computers, are the same. So, no problem with the card). The card was identified by Debian without problem. I used lspci . Next, I specified a Static IP and restarted the network. But, network manager uses DHCP, and gets some wierd IP.

I thought, maybe restart would work. But, when I restarted, it simply refused to connect to the network. WHen I click the Network icon on the top, it says no networking device. lspci, dmesg, all work. ifup, ifdown give me error messages.

I didn't have enough time, so I thought maybe its just an installation problem and I install Red-Hat quickly. Its the same thing.

Does this mean there is some kinda problem with the card, or am I doing something wrong here? I've never had problems with NICs or networking before .

Someone please do help.

as root type /sbin/mii-tool check whether your network card detect the lan.

I'm away from that box right now, so I cannot try it now. I'd like to know why a LAN card wouldn't detect a network.
And what I must do to make it connect to the network?

thats why I need to check your hardware work properly with Linux or not. If yes we proceed further(using static IP is the second step for you)