On November 8, 2003 4:31:25 PM MST; Craig White wrote:

> This in no way answers your question but why not just use a supported
> ethernet card rather than the onboard card? I ask because I am lazy
> enough to always seek the simpler solution.

On Nov 8, 2003, at 7:14 PM, Bart Garst wrote:
>
> I have a copy of modversions.h that has far more content than yours. It
> came from kernel-source-2.4.xxxx.rpm.
>
> Check and see if you have that installed. I have a set of RH7.0 discs
> and can post the kernel-source rpm if you need it (as long as it 
> matches
> your kernel version).

Thank both of you for helping. I was trying to take Craig's advice and 
just buy a compatible ethernet card so I went to RH's site and got the 
compatibility list for ethernet cards under RH 7.0. Much to my 
surprise, I noticed that the via-rhine II was on the list as something 
that the community thought was supported. So checked on the computer 
that I was trying to get communicating and there were no ethernet 
modules installed. This shouldn't have surprised me because during the 
default install anaconda never showed me the screen where you pick your 
address, gateway, DNS server, etc. So Red Hat 7.0 had just assumed that 
there was no ethernet controller. (I've tested RH9 and it works fine on 
this machine).

So the supported list had a model number and I was thinking that maybe 
the machine has a different model number. This led me to stick the CD 
of what I though were Windows drivers that came with the motherboard 
and really search it, looking for some documentation on the chip with a 
model number.

To make a long sad story short, down in the VIA directory in the 
Network directory there is a directory called Linux with a tarball 
named rhinfet.tgz and a linux.txt file. From the text file I have 
learned that a Rhine II ethernet adaptor is not at all the same thing 
as a Rhine II *Fast* ethernet adaptor and that I was trying to use the 
wrong driver all along.

So I'm pretty comfortable I can get this working now but I wanted  to 
thank you both for helping.