Network card found but not configured with Etch / 2.6 kernel

[Ken McCord <ken@themccords.com>]

Hope someone out there can help me with this one, cause I'm stumped.

Have an IBM NetVista 6341-64U system (1.0 GHz Celeron, 512 MB RAM, 
onboard Intel Ethernet adapter) that when Etch boots on it, will detect 
an installed network card, but when networking is configured to start, 
will not start it.  Here's the output of some commands from a fresh boot:

dmesg | grep eth0
e100: eth0: e100_probe: addr 0xfebff000, irq 5, MAC addr 00:02:55:25:65:FB

ifconfig eth0 up
eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device

Similar messages showing the network card being detected at boot, but 
not configured will also occur if I disable the onboard Intel Ethernet 
adapter, and install a PCI network card (I've tried a 3Com and a 
tulip-based card).

This box had previously been used as an IPCop firewall running a 2.4 
kernel, so I know the hardware works.  If I put the hd in another 
system, networking works properly.  I've tried the noapic and nolapic 
boot options, as well as updating to the last BIOS release, but to no 
effect.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Ken