Basic networking questions.

Hey, I'm new to Linux. I have a few questions about it. I run Slackware.

After the installation the Linux installation had problems with my old hardware (network card, sound card) so I removed them and Linux would start.

But now, I can't seem to use the network card in Linux because it's not installed. How do I install it? I suspect Linux had problems with the card because it's rather old. Do I need a new network card to work with Linux?

If not, please tell me how can I install it?

And how can I configure both my windows computer and linux computer to go in a network?

All I want is to set up the computers in a point to point network so I may give the Linux computer acces to internet (haven't got a clue how this works) and to be able to acces my linux box from my windows computer by Samba, putty and Webmin.

If there is any kind of online ebook or tutorial about setting up a network between a windows and linux computer please link it here for me.

But for now my most important question would be how can I install my old network card with Linux? I will find information about networking Linux and Windows eventually but it would be great if someone here would help me out.

If you take a look at
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html
there are many documents there that should help, including Home-Network-mini-HOWTO,Net-HOWTO, Networking-Overview-HOWTO and SMB-HOWTO

Search google for "Samba" as you'll need this for interoperability between Windoze and Linux.

There are *tons* of networking resources on this site, and google, so have a search.

The Linux Documentation Project http://www.tldp.org should have everything you need, too.

If you install your old NIC, boot the machine, and then run dmesg | more it should show you if the network card has been recognised during Linux bootup.

Cheers
ZB
http://www.zazzybob.com

Just a hint. The most probarbaly the network card might have failed to detect the speed or the make of the card. Check your Network card model and make sure its been specified in the /etc/modules.conf

Can you tell us what is your network card and sound card????