networking problem during install

[Bob Galloway <bob@de-fac.to>]

Howdy, deb folk!

I'm trying to turn an old AT&T Globalyst P90 box into a firewall
running Debian.  Installation via NFS would be much easier if I could
get networking to work!  Too bad I can't seem to get the box to notice
incoming packets.

Symptoms:
  - running linux x86 2.0.36, with the tulip driver (bootstrapping with
      slink, since a friend still has my potato CD's)
  - install goes smoothly until the base system install step, when it
      just times out when trying to NFS mount the CD image I'm exporting
      from my desktop box.
  - the ethernet card is fine, since it works just fine if I put it in
      my desktop box
  - the cabling and hub are fine, too; I can swap cables and see the
      same results; I can ping between two other good boxes on the same LAN.
  - if I ping the problem box from outside, I can see activity on the
      LAN, but ifconfig on the problem box shows no recieved packets,
      and I get no responses to the ping.
  - if I try to NFS mount something on the problem box, ifconfig shows
      transmitted packets, but no recieved packets, and the mount attempt
      times out.  I can mount the same volume on a different box.
  - looking at /proc/{pci,interrupts,ioports}, I don't see any conflicts.
  - I've made sure that I'm not doing something stupid like taking an
      IP address already in use.  (I could be doing something else stupid,
      but I don't know where...)
  - I made a staticly-linked binary of ping and moved it to the problem
      box (after a couple of hours(!) of cursing at floppy disks and drives).
      It tells me that ICMP is an "unknown protocol."  That'd probably
      explain the lack of ping, but not the lack of TCP.

So where have I gone wrong?  TIA...


-- 
Bob Galloway                  HELLO KITTY gang terrorizes town... 
                              family STICKERED to death...