[OT]? Module compile problems

[Samuel Thurston, III]

This may or may not belong here, if this isn't the right place to be
asking, what is?

Ubuntu didn't configure my wireless card right.   Doesn't have the
drivers. So I took my CNet wireless card out and swapped it with an
standard intel pro100 model, hooked it up to my hub, and did an
'apt-get dist-upgrade', since it had been a week or two since i
installed one of the warty previews.  I then downloaded the drivers
for my wireless card (RT2400), and made sure i had all the tools and
dependencies fulfilled.  I downloaded the source for the version of
kernel I had, installed both debs packages for my wireless card driver
and utility [http://www.stanchina.net/~flavio/debian/rt2400.html] and
unzipped all sources.

then i followed the directions on the above site.  after issuing 

sudo fakeroot make-kpkg --append-to-version "-2-386" --added-modules
rt2400 modules_image

(the -2-386 matches the end bit of output of uname -r)  ok so here's
where the scary stuff started happening.  it started giving me 'make
config' style questions during the driver build, things like "include
only modules which are expected to compile smoothly" and such.  a
whole lot of them.  things that didn't seem at all related to driver
build.  oh well, i thought, just accept defaults, and move along.

so compilation completes and gives me a good signal.  i cd to /usr/src
and there's the rt2400 driver package, with the apparently right
version string EXCEPT some extra crap on the end about +10.00_custom
or something.  i'm a little nervous at this point, but i'm like what
the heck, 'sudo modprobe rt2400'.  uh-oh!

version magic '2.6.8.1-2-386 386 gcc-3.3' should be '2.6.8.1.-2-386
preempt 386 gcc-3.3'
FATAL:  Invalid module format

now granted, i still haven't put the CNet card back in the box, but i
should most certainly not be getting a version magic conflict.  now I
have two questions:

1) if i --append-to-version "-2-386 preempt" will that do anything to
solve my problem or should i be doing something completely different?
2) is the "invalide module format" a sign of something worse... like
that i should not have accepted the defaults on all the kernel config
stuff?

Please help!

Thanks in advance!
 
-Samuel

(and again, if this isn't the place for this sort of help request,
please direct me to a more appropriate list)