Very Computer

First off, I must say that I'm fairly new to Linux. I installed Mandrake 8.1
a few months back on my Compaq Presario 1216UK laptop and have been
struggling to get a few essential bits working - I hope someone out there
can help me. My quest, is to eventually migrate all my day to day computing
from win2k to Linux instead, however, I need to get the built in 10/100
network recognised and working properly so I can get internet access via my
router (email, newsgroups etc - my main reason for keeping windows at the
moment)

I've visited www.linux-laptop.net and read the notes about this laptop. From
what I can make out, one person has got their network on this laptop
working, and it appears to be a variant of the tulip driver that's needed -
I followed their instructions to make the modified module but it refuses to
load once made - when I insmod it, I get either an invalid GPL licence
complaint, or a number of unresolved symbols being thrown.

Has anyone else got the built in networking on this laptop working (with any
distribution of Linux ?) - if so, how ? I'm not a C or C++ programmer,
otherwise I'd happily dive in and start hacking. If someone could give me
some more pointers as to how I might get this working I'd love them forever.
I'm pulling my hair out at the moment ! ;)

Thanks !

Andy