I'm in the process of trying what you said, but I ran into a little problem......
In order to install the source in the way that you said, I would have to have an internet connection to download the files. Since the network card wasn't installed, I had no internet.
Luckily, I read in another post somewhere that the driver sklin98 also worked for this network, so I tried it and it worked.
I still want to install the 3com driver so I'm going to try what you said, but I have a question about that......
Isn't the source installed, when you first install Mandrake Linux?
Also, what exactly does the command that the website gives you, do?