Alright, I know we've been through this a thousand times, but I'd like to bring something new to the table here. I've tried every executable driver in existence. Most just don't install, and the ONE that does install DOES initiate the driver, however, when I tried to restart networking, my computer freezes, and will not boot again. I understand you can simply edit the pci.c config file to add support for the Rhine II; HOWEVER, how the hell am I supposed to edit it?! I can't for the life of me find a BeOS C editor/compiler, and I'm not even sure if this would work! Is there a solid answer out there, other than "buy a new network card??"

See bebits dot com for the via rhine driver. BeOs's C is built in. You could use the metroworks ide if you wish. BeOS will boot each time and ask for hardware id's and maker numbers from all pci devices. If BeOS can find a match it will input the driver at boot time. If no driver has the numbers pci bus reported then usually no driver will even be guessed. So, what some people have done is edited the driver files to add in suppport for their card numbers. You see the numbers in listdev in terminal or use the preferences devices info tab. To get to the numbers is a bit more difficult. You'd need a binary editor and have to know what to look for. BeOS reverse half inputted it. Contact the author at bebits and see if you can get some help.

Thanks for the info, jefro. However, I still have some issues. I *was* using the Rhine driver from BeBits; it is the one that froze my computer when I installed it, and then attempted to initialize the network. Just freezes the entire system every time. I'm intrigued by this "metroworks ide." I honestly have no idea what that is. Can it be used to recompile the C for pci.c, and add the code I already found for the Rhine II? Thanks.

Your distro might already have it installed. I don't know where you got max 5 but you could get the other distro's. Pretty sure the max 3 has the beide and a few other apps to program. What I would suggest is that you try online at beshare maybe. There are a lot of coders online realtime that might help if they aren't being stinky. Might ask a few times over a few days if you don't have a good reply. The lockup might be that other drivers are causing it. Might try to book in safe mode and see if user add-ons are causing it? As with all beos installs you need to check the partition table with ranish. Also check that the bios is in the slowest settings like default or fail safe settings along with the best quality of ide cables to hard drives. You can't tweek a beos machine like you can with winders.