i have terayon cable modem and i'm trying to config my network connection on gentoo...
on startup i get these errors:
SIOCSIFADDR: no such device
eth0: unknown interface: no such device
SIOCSIFBRDADDR: no such device
eth0: unknown interface: no such device
SIOCSIFNETMASK: no such device

i was told i need special modem modules, but the manufacturer's site says they don't support linux.
anyone knows where i can get those modules?
help would be greatly appreciated...

You need to setup your nic card first. Find out what driver it uses and then load it. If you don't know, open a terminal and run lspci Somewhere in the output there will be a line that tells you what nic you have.

hth

Just has a quick look at the site you posted the link to fancypiper.

Unfortunately the pages were last updated in 2001 and even then the information was incorrect, for ntl at least.

A better site to recommend would be http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h.walker/
it has links to specific cablemodem information on uk cablemodem services. Granted it is not linux specific but then again if you use a cable modem via Ethernet then there is nothing specific to be done regardless of OS.

I can only speak for ntl, but as long as you are able to pickup IP/DNS/Gateway from DHCP you are fine.

luminiscent - the only time you would need special modules is if you were to install via USB.
[edit]
Found the link for USB Cable Modems in Linux

http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdevcat.php?w=d&id=28
[/edit]

I am using Terayon TJ720 under Linux 2.6.4 and it works just fine. All I had to do is compile the kernel module "usbnet" and modprobe it.

Unfortunately, the modem doesn't work under Linux 2.6.5 and 2.6.6. I hope they will fix it or I'll be stuck with 2.6.4 forever...

I also tested it under 2.4.25, "modprobe usbnet" makes it work. Of course when you have "usbnet" module compiled in. It also requires "CDCEther" module under 2.4.x.