How to get ethernet connection?

[joe at actionline.com]

Well, with endless experimentation, I finally got a *partial* solution.

> What distro are you setting up?

I've tried two dozen live CDs and a few live flash sticks.
Same problem with all of them.

> A) Do you have link light on the card and router?

There is a link light lit on the router, none on the computer.

> B) What does the last few entries in "dmesg" show you?

I'll reply to the rest of your suggestions later,
but what I discovered was that after booting windows 7 (yuck)
and then trying my PCLinuxOS live CD, the ethernet connection
was actually working (partially).

But it seems to be very selective in what access I can get.

I only have the Konqueror browser available on the Live CD.
With it, I can access google.com but no other websites.
>From google, I can find very few other websites that I can access.
Most return an error message saying: "The requested operation
could not be completed -- Unknown host"  go figure.

I also tried: firefox.com (to try to download it).
The mozilla website will launch, but no further actions
are possible.

This is really bizarre.