2.4 kernel, sis900 module, won't work

[Geoffrey Prewett <prewett@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>]

Hi,

I recently bought a Sony GRT-170 laptop and have been trying to install
Debian on it.  I have been successful in getting 2.2.20 (3.0r1) to both boot
and have network (sis900) support.  Unfortunately, 2.4 kernels refuse to
work.  modprobe sis900 works great, but the network simply does not work;
DHCP fails and pinging from a static ip address fails.  (The same config
commands work in 2.2.20)  I tried kernels ranging from 2.4.0 to 2.4.22 and
nothing works, compiling them myself and using stock Debian kernels.  I
have also tried 2.4.5 with just about everything turned off and still no
luck.

I did find that in order to boot successfully I had to disable APIC ("noapic"
on the lilo command line), otherwise all 2.4 Debian kernels would hang
immediately after IDE devices were detected.  I suppose that it is possible
that this prevents the network devices from being properly detected
and configured.

I have been told that the SuSE 8.2 (2.4.20) kernel works, but I tried
compiling 2.4.20 with their .config file and it didn't work.  I also tried
compiling it with their patches but get an
  tcp_ecn.h: union has no member named "af_inet"
error that I can't seem to resolve.

If any of you have any suggestions, please let me know as I am tearing my
hair out trying to get this to work.

Thanks,
Geoff Prewett