Network Debugging Session

I've been using the same machine with the same OS for years now at work and haven't had any problems getting a DHCP address from our local DHCP server until this past week. Here are my thoughts and steps in troubleshooting this problem. This isn't meant to help you through a networking problem yourself, but more to coach you on a process of debugging and elimination that is very important when dealing with computers in particular.

• The network must be down. Check the machine next to me (it's fine)
• My cable must be bad. Swap cables with the working machine (still not working). Must be my machine.
• Maybe the network driver is hung from a sleep state. Cycle the driver with "ifconfig eth0 down; modprobe -r e100; modprobe e100; ifup eth0". Still not working.
• I have done some selective package upgrading lately, so maybe my version of dhclient (the program that requests the IP address) is somehow broken. I check my version (2.0pl5) and compare it to my buddies (3.03) which is working. AHA! this looks like it might be the problem.
• I reboot my machine with the Knoppix 5.0.1 CD which is likely to have a different utility to get a DHCP address to make absolutely sure it's not my hardware.
• Knoppix on my machine gets an IP address fine so I know it's not a hardware problem.
• I want to find out what utility Knoppix uses to get an IP address (because I think the Knoppix guys are Linux geniuses and I want to copy them). I run "ps aux" and look through the results to find that they are using "pump" version 0.8.24-1.
• I fire up the browser and go to http://packages.debian.org to see if a Debian package for pump is available. I use the search tool to search for keyword "pump" in the "testing" repositories. Sure enough they have pump version 0.8.24-2. I download it onto the hard drive because I can't get a DHCP address in the installed OS, so no nework connection.
• I reboot into Debian and install the package with "dpkg -i pump_0.8.24-2_i386.deb".
• I bring my network card up (without requesting a DHCP address) with the command "ifconfig eth0 up". I do this becasue I want to manually execute the DHCP request to give me the most debugging information possible.
• When I execute this command, to my extreme surprise I see the message "eth0 is a wireless adapter". WHAAAAT? That was my problem. I am requesting a DHCP address on my wireless adapter while being plugged in to a wired network with no wireless access point around.