For self-reference, mainly:

For the Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection on an old kernel that doesn’t have the drivers compiled into it – get the driver and

make install

it on the platform you’re on, and to be sure (if it doesn’t get done for you) to copy to /lib/modules/2.4.36/kernel/drivers/net/ (your kernel may vary, this is an example only)

insmod e1000e it and then you should be able to access the module quite neatly. On startup, you may want to add

insmod e1000e

into your rc.d startup files (eg rc.network)

And you have access to the network so that you can upgrade 🙂