Mandrake 7.0 NIC/routing question

[Philip C Mendelsohn <mend0070@tc.umn.edu>]

I've got the network running, including a laptop.  Now it's time to enable
networking on my "big" machine.

This is running Mandrake 7.0, using a 2.2.14 kernel, and a 3com 3c509 NIC.

I am having the darndest time getting it to talk to the eth0 interface.
I have set up /etc/hosts the way everything wants.  I have nothing in
/etc/hosts.deny or /etc/hosts.allow.  I have set the address to
192.168.1.10, and the netmask to 255.255.255.0.  I get a green light on
the hub (after a scare), so I know the cables to be good.

When I try and ping another host, I get nothing.  If I say 'ifconfig -a' I
get the lo interface and the eth0 interface, but if I just say 'ifconfig'
I only get the lo interface.  If I say 'ifconfig eth0 up', I get 

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Resource temporarily unavailable

If I try and use UserNet, it fails, and I get 

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Resource temporarily unavailable
SIOCADDRT: Network is down
SIOCADDRT: File exists

route returns:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use
Iface
127.0.0.1       *               255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 lo
192.168.1.0     michigan.rephil 255.255.255.0   UG    0      0        0 
eth0
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo

If I try 'route add 192.168.1.10 eth0', I get

SIOCADDRT: Network is down

I've tried doing things by hand, and I've tried doing things with
linuxconf, DrakConf, and whatever else I can get my hands on.  If it means
anything, the Mandrake hardware config "Lothar" doesn't find any network
card hardware, though when you watch it boot or do dmesg, you see it say
"Bringing up interface eth0		[ OK ]"

What am I missing?  Tell me this can be done without reinstalling, please!

Thanks,

Phil M

-- 
Life is complex:
It has real and imaginary components.
                     --Unknown