I would connect bridged, put a static IP address in the 2008 server (in the same subnet as the router). It may want to be the DHCP server, but I would leave that up to the router (assuming you have one), if it is set up as a DHCP server.
Check using ipconfig on the Windows machine and ifconfig on the Linux machine and make sure they are on the same subnet as the router and host. That should allow you to ping and share files and such. What do you mean by communicate? Are you wanting to share files? Join a domain? Remote desktop connections?
How do you connect to the corporate network via VPN? Hardware? Microsoft VPN?
Lou