3com NIC question

[Sunny Dubey <dubeys@voyager.bxscience.edu>]

hey,

I have a 3c509 NIC.

I tried getting an IP for this NIC by using DHCP.  (I used dhcpcd)  But for 
some odd reason, it wouldn't work, and so I stfw'ed. (searched the fucking 
web).  looking at various mailing lists, i found that I wasn't the only one 
with the same problem, the common solution was to disable PNP, and try again. 
 I followed the steps as show, with no luck in the end.

I tried both linux-2.4.6, linux-2.2.19pre17 (The one with potatoe) and 
various dhcp clients (dhcpcd, pump, etc) and none have worked.

But today, on the same box I tried installing openbsd, and I found that DHCP 
worked right out of the install.  This made me wonder once again why it 
doesn't work under linux.

Does anyone have any insight on why this happens only in linux?  (I tried 
under windows, and it works there too)

Thanks

Sunny Dubey