dhcp unable to grab address. suse 9.0 installation

[grady]

I am trying to install Suse 9.0 pro. I am on Cox cable modem service which is/was an @home network. My network card is identified correctly by the installation tool but when it tries to test the network by connecting to the internet it cannot get an ip address. The error log says "DHCP client already running on eth0".

I can do an 'ifdown eth0' followed by 'ifup eth0'. ifup will basically produce a timeout on the dhcp and say it is 'backgrounding'. 'ifstatus eth0' will then say dhcpcd is running and eth0 is down. Another 'ifup eth0' will reproduce the "DHCP client already running on eth0" error message again.

The only parameters i need to get an address in windows are my "Computer name" and a "workgroup" which is "@home". I think I've tried all possible combinations of putting these two parameters everywhere I can stick them in the dhcp setup, particularly in fields that sound like 'host name' and 'client id'. Nothing works.

The computer doesn't have an ip but doing an ifconfig after installation gives:

eth0 [snip]
      inet6 addr fe80::209::5bff::...[snip]
      [snip]

From googling around about this problem I'm ready to believe this: It looks like the network has been configured to use ipv6. I'm sure my ISP does not support this. Does an ipv6 compatibility issue sound like it could be the problem?

This might also be pertinent, from /var/log/messages:

eth0: natsemi DP8381[56] at 0xd28c2000 00:09:5b:61:ae:29 IRQ 11
eth0: link up
[snip]
IPV6 v0.8 (usagi-cvs/ipsec6 based StS) for NET4.0
ipv6 over ipv4 tunneling driver
[snip]
eth0: no ipv6 routers present

My network card is a Netgear FA311, suse wants to use the natsemi driver for it. This computer has worked before on DHCP with an out-of-the-box redhat 8.0 install. Thanks for reading this.

[hard candy]

I would say the driver is configured to use the IP6 protocol. My next move would be to check "modprobe -l | more" and see if another driver module is available in the list-perhaps Suse misconfigured the network card. If you find one or can find documentation on exactly what version of the driver is to be used- load it up with "insmod 'module'" and check "ifconfig" again. Then I would check in the control center for Suse and make sure it knows to use dhcp and to check the network settings (this may be under "network" in the menu also).
According to this site: scyld
that should be the correct driver. The site has some documentation also.