[NTLUG:Discuss] Formatting a floppy with ext3, also using Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet Adapter(LNE100TX v4) with Smoothwall

[Wayne Dahl]

Ok, now that I have the CD burning thing down, I have another problem
that googling is making me crazy over.  

I have installed Smoothwall 2.0b6 on an old PC, P-120, 57 Megs of ram,
760 Meg HD for hda and the install goes along just fine until it
attempts to find the Linksys card mentioned above.  It sees the old 3Com
card ok, but there is no option for Linksys in the list of NIC's.  When
I run the probe and tell it to skip the 3Com card (I want the Linksys
card on the LAN side (Smoothwalls Green side) of the firewall), it sees
the Linksys card as a Digital 21x4x Tulip PCI card, so I attempt using
it with the tulip driver since smoothwall can't seem to see or recognize
the Linksys card for what it actually is.  The installation process goes
right on, I select the 3Com card for the Red/Internet side of the
firewall and everything is peachy...until I reboot.  Then, when
attempting to initialize eth0, the Linksys card, Smoothwall returns an
error that just keeps incrementing forever and never stops...basically,
it gets hung at that point and will not go on.  The error is 

eth0: (0) System Error Occurred (0)

The first (0) increments each time the error occurs and it just keeps
count up forever.  At this point, the only thing I can do is shut the
machine off as I can't get to a login screen to manually install the
Linksys drivers.

Here's the big problem.  I have the Linksys drivers to use for Linux,
but they're mounted on a msdos floppy.  The Smoothwall kernal doesn't
have msdos support configured in it, so I have been attempting to
transfer the files to an ext3 floppy (the Smoothwall fs is ext3) so
Smoothwall can see them and I can use the Linux native drivers Linksys
provided for that card.  I have googled, I have tried my Linux in a
Nutshell and everything tells me to use either mkfs or mke2fs to create
the fs on the floppy.  Bash is not cooperating, however, as it tells me
mkfs and mke2fs don't exist.

On the Smoothwall box, I can get to a command prompt during the install
process and when I attempt mke2fs -t ext3 /dev/fd0 1440, I get the
following error...

mke2fs: bad blocks count - /dev/fd0

Basically, I'm getting nowhere and am considering a different firewall. 
Any suggestions?

Wayne