Well, I managed to get an ext2fs installed on my disk.  I copied a 15MB
filesystem from an i386 box. :)
The problem is I still can't boot from it.  Or I am not typing the right
thing.
Here is the output:
Cobalt: bfd
BOOTLOADER: trying to boot from partition /dev/hda1
Decompressing  done
Jump_to_Real_Kernel: disk error, trying BFD again
BOOTLOADER DEBUG: flashdelaying...
BOOTLOADER: trying to boot from partition /dev/hdc1
Decompressing  done
 [hang]

My partition table looks like this:
NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
cylinders: 16383 heads: 16 sectors/track: 63 (1008 sectors/cylinder)

BIOS disk geometry:
cylinders: 16383 heads: 16 sectors/track: 63 (1008 sectors/cylinder)

Partition table:
0: sysid 131 (Linux native)
    start 63, size 31328 (15 MB), flag 0x80
        beg: cylinder    0, head   1, sector  1
        end: cylinder   31, head   2, sector 17
1: sysid 169 (NetBSD)
    start 42336, size 24859296 (12138 MB), flag 0x0
        beg: cylinder   42, head   0, sector  1
        end: cylinder  127, head  15, sector 63
2: <UNUSED>
3: <UNUSED>

And disklabel:
cobalt# disklabel wd0
# /dev/rwd0d:
type: ESDI
disk: fireball12
label:
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 16383
total sectors: 24901632
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds
drivedata: 0

8 partitions:
#        size   offset     fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:   263088    42336     4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.   42 - 302)
  b:  1052352   305424       swap                        # (Cyl.  303 - 1346)
  c: 24859296    42336     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.   42 - 24703)
  d: 24901632        0     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0 - 24703)
  e:   526176  1357776     4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl. 1347 - 1868)
  f: 22975344  1883952     4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl. 1869 - 24661)
  h:    42273       63 Linux Ext2        0     0         # (Cyl.    0*- 41)

My 'wd0h' partition is larger than the ext2fs partition in fdisk only
because I had reserved 20MB, but only had a 15MB filesystem image.
I'm assuming the disklabel won't affect the firmware boot. :)

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Worst case perhaps someone with
a working Cobalt could make an image of the first partition available.

Thanks.

-Andrew
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Gillham                            | NetBSD ist Affengeil.
gillham@whirlpool.com                     | Nachts ist es kaelter
I speak for myself, not for my employer.  | als draussen.