I’m posting this in the hopes that it will save someone the trouble I just went through. I found quite a few posts of people experiencing the same issues with the Realtek 8139 Family network cards but no one had a solution.
The Problem: Linux (Ubuntu Feisty in this case) detects and loads the kernel modules for the card, things seem to work however the card will not receive data preventing it from getting a DHCP address among other things.
The Cause: This seems to happen mostly on computers that are just being upgraded to Linux from Windows, specifically if relatively new Windows drivers were installed.
The Solution: Unplug the PC. Sounds stupid but you can re-boot and re-install until you’re blue in the face and Windows will still work and Linux will not. The Windows drivers are placing the NIC into a “power saving” mode that can only be reset by a driver that knows about it or by cutting all the power to the PC for a while.
I wish I’d known all this a couple hours ago.
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