2002-08-14 02:07 UTC Windows sucks too
Ok, so it turns out that the root problem (ignoring the bugs in dhcpcd and the Mandrake boot scripts, I mean) is that the Windows 2000 gateway to the cable "modem" on the LAN isn't serving DHCP in the first place, so the "Residential Gateway" wireless router doesn't know how to respond to the DHCP requests from the laptop.
Hmm. I wonder how this worked before.