Well, I got a Netgear FA311 10/100 ethernet NIC installed last night. I still have not network yet, so can't say anything about the performance but here's a quick note about the installation.
(http://www.netgear.com/images/products/thumbnails/fa311.jpg)
The retail box comes with clear written instructions. Installation consists of opening the case, plugging the card into an empty PCI slot, booting up, Windows finds the new hardware and asks for drivers, and you install the drivers from the included disk. A few reboots are required, and in my case, the generic written instructions don't exactly match the order of screens actually observed. However, there is a help file included on the disk, that gives step-by-step instructions specific to whichever OS is used (Win3.11, Win95/98, WinNT3.51/4.0, Win2K, Novell Client for DOS/Win95/98, Linux, SCO Unix). Hmm, didn't see WinME in there, not sure what's up with that.
It also required installation of some Windows networking components, so the Windows CD was needed. The only bad thing was that this changed my network bindings configuration, which had been modified to a more secure setup, according to the advice at the Gibson Research Corporation (http://grc.com/su-bondage.htm")page. So, I had to change the settings back, and it seems to work ok so far.
Next week cable is supposed to get installed, so I'll let you know how it goes.
(http://neon.home.texas.net/neonsm.gif)