How do I get my on-board Intel PRO/1000 PL ethernet controller to load and work in Ubuntu Linux?

The computer is an AOpen MP945-X Mini-PC (http://minipc.aopen.com/europe/spec_945X.htm -- the one in the middle of the listings).

I have it dual-booting into Windows XP Pro and Kubuntu. In XP Pro the on-board ethernet controller / NIC functions just fine. It's using the XP driver I downloaded from Intel's website, and it shows up correctly as Intel PRO/1000 PL Network Connection in Device Manager.  It's on a 945GM Mobile Express Chipset (this is a mini-PC "desktop" computer but it uses laptop mobile hardware).

I installed Mythbuntu on this computer, which is supposed to load the drivers for the NIC during installation, but it did not. I tried to manually install the Intel NIC drivers for Linux but it would not recognize and install the NIC.  Then I formatted and install Kubuntu Desktop, which also failed to load the NIC during installation. I tried the e1000e drivers and the e1000 drivers. I downloaded these drivers:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=2247&DwnldID=15817&strOSs=39&OSFullName=Linux*&lang=eng

And followed the steps in the README ( http://downloadmirror.intel.com/11960/ENG/e1000.htm ) ---- (basically: untar the file, go to /src/, run make install, then run rmmod e1000e to remove the previous version (if any), then run modprobe e1000e to install the NIC. Also tried insmod e1000e -- and also insmod using the full path to the drivers). Every time the modprobe/insmod commands take less than a second to run, show no output, and when I run an ifconfig -a it only reports the lo loopback interface. No eth0, or anything else. And the mythbuntu and kubuntu network managers both reported no network connection.

Here are the results of running dmesg and lspci (the parts that relate to the NIC anyway):

dmesg:

[  734.796835] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 0.4.1.7-NAPI
[  734.796845] e1000e: Copyright (c) 1999-2008 Intel Corporation.
[  734.870953] e1000e: probe of 0000:02:00.0 failed with error -5
[ 1018.717355] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 0.4.1.7-NAPI
[ 1018.717365] e1000e: Copyright (c) 1999-2008 Intel Corporation.
[ 1018.718591]  [<e07c2bb9>] e1000_get_phy_id+0x69/0x90 [e1000e]
[ 1018.718625]  [<e07b361e>] e1000_set_interrupt_capability+0x3e/0x140 [e1000e]
[ 1018.718649]  [<e07bbc3e>] e1000_init_phy_params_82571+0x1ce/0x1e0 [e1000e]
[ 1018.718673]  [<e07b6aa4>] e1000_probe+0x384/0xd30 [e1000e]
[ 1018.718836]  [<e0265048>] e1000_init_module+0x48/0x60 [e1000e]
[ 1018.790729] e1000e: probe of 0000:02:00.0 failed with error -5

(and when I grep e1000 instead of e1000e it gives me the same exact error... "failed with error -5" -- so it looks like it is trying to load both the e1000 driver and the e1000e driver and encountering the same problem).

lspci:

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller
 

Not sure what the line "[  734.870953] e1000e: probe of 0000:02:00.0 failed with error -5" means but I doubt it's good! (Also after a reboot I get the same errors, and the NIC / ethernet interface does not show up). ifconfig -a just shows the lo interface.

I also tried modprobe and insmod with the e1000 driver (in addition to the e1000e driver), and the e100 driver. The download page on Intel's site for the e1000e drivers does not explicitly state support for the PRO/1000 PL controller, but it does say that the drivers are for the PRO/1000 family of network controllers. And in the README there is a section about Jumbo Frames and it explicitly lists the PRO/1000 PL Network Connection in the list. So I -think- this e1000e driver from Intel is supposed to work for this PRO/1000 PL NIC but I'm not sure.

This AOpen mini-PC came loaded with Linux and the NIC worked on it (I confirmed it). But I wanted to put Ubuntu on it, so I formatted the hard drive then installed XP Pro then Ubuntu. Any help would be greatly appreciated!