What do you see when you run ifconfig -a?  It kinda sounds like your cards
aren't being configured correctly.  Are your cards the Realtek 8019's?  If
so, these are NE2000 clones.  I have two of those suckers in my firewall.
Make sure you've got the ne2000 module compiled and loaded.  The drivers for
the 8019 are different from the 8029, too.  If you do have the 8019's, you
should have a floppy that came with it.  (I have many of them laying around
if you don't.)  Boot into DOS (I hate having to do that) and run
rset8019.exe (that's off the top o' my head).  Make sure your cards each
have different IRQ and IO settings and don't conflict with anything else in
your machine.  If I'm not mistaken, you can also give the modules a helping
hand by passing these values to the driver.  (I don't recall the exact
syntax for this off the top of my head.)  Once you have both cards seen (you
should see a successful-looking message in dmesg and see both cards when you
cat /proc/[interrupts|ioports|devices|etc.]) you can proceed from there to
ifconfig the interfaces, set up dhcp, set up your routing, etc..  FWIW, I
have had Cox @Home for over a year and I don't run DHCP.  I plugged a
slapped-together Win98 box (RIP) into the connection and looked at the IP
address it had been assigned.  I then statically assigned that to my
external interface and it has not changed since.   (I think someone else
suggested that the other day, too.)

> ----------
> From: 	David Demland[SMTP:ddemland@cadtel.com]
> Reply To: 	plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> Sent: 	Thursday, April 20, 2000 11:02 AM
> To: 	PLUG Discuss
> Subject: 	Cox and DHCP
> 
> I have read the HOWTO and have tried what I ways told here. But I still
> can not get Linux box to get something back from the DHCP from Cox. I have
> used both pump and dhcpcd and both time out. Question I have two network
> cards in the computer, they are both Realtek cards. I have tried to set
> the default gateway to the eth1 card but route will only allow a hostname
> or IP address. How do I set this up with route to handle the nic that is
> getting the IP from DHCP? Also both of the network cards have the same
> hardware address. The tools that come with the Realtek cards do not allow
> the setting of the address. Is this a problem?
>  
> Thank You,
>  
> David Demland
> Qa / Testing Manager
> CADTEL Systems, Inc.
> 11201 N. Tatum Ste. 200
> Phoenix, AZ 85028
> (602) 953-4888
> FAX: (602) 953-4833
> ddemland@cadtel.com
> 
>