If you take a look at
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html
there are many documents there that should help, including Home-Network-mini-HOWTO,Net-HOWTO, Networking-Overview-HOWTO and SMB-HOWTO
Search google for "Samba" as you'll need this for interoperability between Windoze and Linux.
There are *tons* of networking resources on this site, and google, so have a search.
The Linux Documentation Project
http://www.tldp.org should have everything you need, too.
If you install your old NIC, boot the machine, and then run
dmesg | more it should show you if the network card has been recognised during Linux bootup.
Cheers
ZB
http://www.zazzybob.com