One of the most important pieces of equipment you need to acquire for your home network is network cards. Now, there is no reason to go spend big bucks on a name brand, top of the line network card, when there are some name brands that have bargain prices on them. If you are running a windows box, any network card will go in there and have drivers for it. But, linux is a little different. Now, Linux will run a LOT of cards, but the easiest way to make sure you have a card that will easily be recognized by Linux is to stick with either a 3com, or a NE2000 compatible. I have had really good experiences with the D-Link products. Almost every card they make is a NE2000 compatible. Even their PCI network cards. And they usually run under $20 at CompUSA. So if you can't find any cards anywhere else, there are cheap ones that can be had at the store. Just do yourself a favor and research the cards before you grab a bargain card to make sure it will easily run under linux. For most networks, 10baseT cards are sufficient to run a home network.
There are different types of network cards. Some have jumpers on them (older 10baseT cards such as Novell Anthem, OLD 3coms, etc), but most cards today whether ISA or PCI are autoconfiguring, and have a driver disk that comes with them. You can also download this config disk from the manufacturer's website. You will also need a DOS disk around to boot from. Configuring most cards is a simple exercise. Put ONE and only one card in the computer, boot to a dos disk, then run the config utility from the manufacturer's disk. Turn off ANY plug and play features, and set the i/o address and irq to something other than default, yet doesn't conflict with any other device. Write the config to the card, then write down the i/o address and irq that you just used. Then power down the computer.
Now do yourself a BIG favor. Write the information you just wrote down about those cards on a sticky and tape it securely to the front cover of your router. Just in case you need to reconfigure later, or your floppy gets corrupted or you upgrade to a new version of freesco, you will need this. Also, it is also a good idea to take a sharpy or a piece of masking tape and write on the outside of the metal tab on the network card what address each one is as you configure it. That way once they are in and you don't remember which is which, you can plug the cables in right.
Now, remove the one you just configured and install the other network card. Repeat the same process only use a different i/o address and irq for the second card. This time when you shut down, put the first card back in so both are in the computer. Now you are ready to move on to configuring a router.