233 mhz wallstreet mac laptop mandrake 10.1 install freeze
 

I have a wallstreet 233 mhz laptop, and while installing mandrake 10.1 for ppc, it freezes at a screen with an icon in the corner of a black screen. the icon is a star with a little blue swish next to it. has anyone had this happen to them or have any suggestions? any help would be appreciated.

I would suggest you install in text mode. Not sure the machine (unless I am mistaken) can cope with graphical mode.
Just press F1 instead of Enter at the first screen. This will take yuou to a further options screen.

ok thanks

i couldn't figure out where to press f1 instead of enter, there's no place to press enter.

i followed some instructions on a site,and put in some kernel arguments. (root=/dev/ram3 install-text automatic=method:cdrom) i can get partway into the installation in graphical mode, and then it locked up at a screen that says: "installing driver for disk/ide|scsi|hardware_raid|firewire card mesh". everything just sits there until i do a force reboot. again, any suggestions?

have you ever installed Linux on this mac before? Maybe give Ubuntu or Fedora a shot too just to see if it is actually a problem with the notebook or with Mandrake.

Also, when you first boot from the CD, if I remember correctly, it boots a little bit different than most Linux distros. It has a menu, right? Try F1 there

Yeah, i've installed yellow dog and a suse beta, but i didn't like them that much.
also, i can't boot directly from the cd, i have to use bootx. (old world mac)

You'd hit "F1" at the boot prompt for the CD. Same place you typed in the kernel arguments.

when i press f1 at the bootloader nothing happens. it's probably because i'm using bootx.bootx

You might be right there. Normally you'd type "text" at the CD's boot prompt, but I'll try and take a look at the mac bootloader if I get a chance.

i'm not booted from the cd. old world macs can't boot from any cd's except mac os cd's up to 10.2. to install linux i have to use an in-mac os 9 bootloader (bootx)