Adding hardware to debian

First I would just like to apologize if this topic is already posted.

I installed debian on my computer on a lan and was able to connect to the network no problem. I then took the card out used the machine a few more times and realized i needed the net on the machine...so I put the card back in and I cant for the life of me seem to grab an IP address. I know the modules were added when I installed the OS (though I checked anyway), and its added to the /etc/modules. Its a pretty standard linksys card and I'm loading the tulip module. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Cody

Also I forgot to mention (Im not sure that it matters) that the Debian machine is now connecting right to the modem instead of a lan.

What does the command ifconfig display? Does it show eth0 as UP or DOWN? Is there a static IP address assigned to the NIC? If it's down, try

[code:1]ifconfig eth0 up[/code:1]

Check /etc/network/interfaces to see if the interfaces file includes the line iface eth0 inet dhcp.

ifconfig doesnt bring up anything about eth0

my interfaces file just says:
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
name Ethernet LAN card

Im not sure whats with that last line...what is the file supposed to look like anyway?

Thanks for the response
Cody

also when I start up it says:

Failed to bring up eth0

I'm not sure if this was the problem or not.

I ended up installing a new linux os on this computer and it still would not connect to the net. Well earlier today i learned that some ISP's will only let you connect with one mac address per IP. So what i did was change the mac address on my second machine to match the one that was hooked up with my ISP originally

I hope this all makes sense.
Thanks for you help,
Cody