eth0 not recognized:school system

[Tyler Littlefield]

Hello,
I'm trying to set up a linux system here at school at my lab station, and am using a cross over.
I installed linux and all that, but when I use ifconfig, it says that eth0 wasn't recognized.
I've tried:
inserting a NIC card in to the pci slot and using that.
I also tried the onboard card, and it's not recognizing.
Any ideas on how to get it to recognize? I've never had this problem before.