floppy problem with Linux on TP

[moy <moy@math.rutgers.edu>]

With help from this mailing list, I have installed Linux (1.2.9) and
X-windows on a TP 755C.  In the case of Linux 1.2.9, I had to *make*
it after pulling it off the sunsite ftp site so that I could have the
pcmcia card services package developed by David Hinds.  The March 95
InfoMagic CD I have been using for the installation only has 1.2.1.

However, I have noticed that Linux (1.2.9 and even 1.2.1) have the 
following problem(s)
  (1) Linux does not properly mount a msdos floppy with the command
        mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
      In fact I cannot mount any type of floppy file system with Linux
  (2) nor do the mtools commands such as mdir or mcopy work

Of course, when I used dos to rawrite the boot and root disk from
a Linux Distribution CDROM, I managed to boot from them, but otherwise
I have not been able to use the floopy.  I have no problems with a
scsi CDROM nor a scsi HD.

The following is are some examples of errors I get 

    bash# fdformat /dev/fd0
    Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB.
    Formatting ...   1
    ioctl(FDFMTTRK): Invalid argument

    bash# fdformat /dev/fd0
    ioctl(FDGETPRM): No such device

    bash# mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt
    mount: /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device

    bash# mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
    mount: /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device

Has anybody else run into this problem and found a solution?
 
- Allen Moy