can someone help a linux noob??

[dxqcanada]

Your ifconfig output is only showing the lo (loopback) interface.

If your ethernet card was correctly loaded you should have seen an eth0 interface in your ifconfig output.

What is the output of:

# lspci | grep Network

[dxqcanada]

The /etc/conf.d/net is a configuration file.
You do not run it.

To start the eth0 ethernet interface you use:

# /etc/init.d/net.eth0 start

[daredevil90002003]

The /etc/conf.d/net is a configuration file.
You do not run it.

To start the eth0 ethernet interface you use:

# /etc/init.d/net.eth0 start

here's what i get when i run the code posted above:
localhost~ #: /etc/init.d/net.eth0 start
* starting eth0
* configuration not set for eth0 assuming dhcp
* no dhcp client installed
localhost~ #:

[dxqcanada]

OK, it looks like you skipped a part of the installation ... there is a section in the Installation Handbook that talks about setting up your networking.
There would have been a comment about installing a dhcp client.

You can setup a fixed address ... just to get you communicating.

The /etc/conf.d/net.example file shows all the options ... example to add a static address and a default gateway ... add these lines to the /etc/conf.d/net file:

config_eth0=( "192.168.0.2/24" )
routes_eth0=( "default via 192.168.0.1" )

[daredevil90002003]

OK, it looks like you skipped a part of the installation ... there is a section in the Installation Handbook that talks about setting up your networking.
There would have been a comment about installing a dhcp client.

i think i mentioned that the installer wouldn't let me config the network, skipping it was the only way to get the gui to install at all. i think that there is a problem with beta 2's install compiler, though i couldn't tell you what it was, although it did say something about "segmentation fault" while it was supposed to be installing the network components. it did it like 5 times in a row, so i just skipped it, figuring i could make it work later... if your trick works, hopefully i'll be posting from my linux machine.