I am trying to install gentoo on a thinkpad t30 using the 2008.0 minimal x86 cd. I am connecting to my router using ethernet, and this thinkpad has used this ethernet card before perfectly on xubuntu 8.10. I type "net-setup eth0" and go through the steps, but then I type "ifconfig" and eth0 doesn't show up. I think the card is an INTEL PRO 10/100 which should be the e100 driver. The e1000 driver loads on boot, but if I type "modprobe e100" I just get a blinking cursor.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

sorry, it just randomly started working again. Oh well!

Now it's just stopped working, after I've installed everything.

I installed yesterday, after the card started working again. However, before rebooting, I forgot to "emerge e1000" whilst the card was working. When I boot, I get "failed to load module e1000". So I decided to reboot the cd and chroot into filesystem and emerge from there. But there's one problem. eth0 is not being detected at all now in the live cd so I do not have a net connection to get the files from.

How would I either:
- get the ethernet card working without using the internet/network
- emerge e1000 without using the internet/network

My only idea is to "emerge -p e1000 > packages.txt" then copy the "packages.txt" to my other computer via usb stick, download them from there, copy the files onto the usb stick, then into "/usr/portage/distfiles" then "emerge e1000". Would this work?