should I even mention Microsoft here ???

Objective:

I would like to share my cable modem Internet link for 2 PCs''s
[1 linux Mandrake 8.0 ,,,, 1 windows 2000]

Tried using MS ICS but didn't seem to work.
Tried using the linux sharing scheme but the utility
didn't recognize the second ethernet card even though
it was configured., so that failed.

Would like to use Apache as a web server using the cable modem.
[speed doesn't matter here]

Would prefer having NT 2000 as the frontend because the
firewall is easy to configure. [not a requirement though]

Has anyone tired to network 2 o/s's as above ?
Any idea's.
Should I change the linux ether card ?
thks.