Thanks, Owen. I'll take the plunge on Monday with a dos disk then (my bro has one). I don't know why I am worrying, as i have nothing of import on there, it's just set up to play with really. Things have gone from bad to worse as usual, though, as I discovered from insmod that it thinks io=300 and IRQ=11. /modutils/3c509 was edited to show io=280 and IRQ=10. I edited modutils to reflect what the card thinks it is, but it won't show up at all now - no eth0. So what I am being told to do using the dos disk is to get into the NIC and tell that that it has to be 280 and 10, rather than the other way around? Many sorrows for the idiotic incomprehension. Most people seem to install linux and either everything works or they kind of understand this stuff by osmosis of some kind. Jenny