networking on the #$%^ing Dell laptop

I've been trying to get the Dell laptop to network under windows XP. So far it has proved to be a losing battle.

The version of XP I got is XP Home. Which does not support Windows domain controllers. Or more than 5 computers on the same network. And when I try to set up good ol' TCP/IP networking (an IP, subnet, Gateway address) it doesn't work. Arghhhhh...

Finally I'm trying to get Windows ME to install and perhaps network using that. All I need to get in is a measly 250 kB Broadcom driver for Linux kernel, which will allow me to network under Linux and hence get an upgraded version of Debian GNU/Linux. If it had been an open source driver, I might have typed the damn thing in by hand.

Windows ME installation underway...*Sigh*