Hey dude,
I've just spent MANY days surfing for solutions to a similar problem, while trying to install it on my G4 Tower with and Apple 17" LCD Studio Display.......
This might help though....
You probably need to pass some video setting to the kerenel to get things cooking....
I'll assume that you have the 15" PowerBook with an ATI Radeon Mobilty video card - if so - try this at the boot prompt: intall-gui video=radeon:1280x854
This specifies which video driver to use, and which resolution to use. It usually gets you somewhere.
For me with my ATI Rage 128 Pro and an Apple 17" LCD Display, it was imperitive to specify the default resolution for my specific display, and ONLY that resolution, because everything else got me nowhere at all.
OF course this only got me as far as the first GUI install page which was totally garbled
If this happens you can try specifying extra options like color depth or refresh rates.
eg: intall-gui video=radeon:1280x854-16@60 (Where 16 is the color depth and 60 is the refresh rate)
You can also try using the benh kernel install option, which has support for newer Macs:
eg: install-gui-benh video=radeon:1280x854-16@60
Or you can try passing a general Frame Buffer video option like:
install-gui video=fbdev
or: install-gui force-fbdev
You can also try: install-gui video=ofonly
This should get you (at the very least) to the next screen with the Mandrake Logo and a bunch of text, but the screen may go blank during the "second stage install", when it loads the GUI install server stuff.......
None of these option got me very far at all, and i ended up running the install via the Text Only option, didn't configure my display, choose not to run the GUI server at start-up, and configured the display server via the console after the install and a reboot.
If this ends up being your final route:
1. You'll need to boot using this option at the prompt: linux video=radeon:1280x854
2. Then login as root.
3. Then you can install the benh-2420 kernel (an even better kernel to use if you're still having video problems): urpmi kernel-benh
4. Reboot
5. And then choose the benh-2420 boot option: 2420-benh
6. Login again as root
7. Run 'drakconf' and setup your display options - You may have to choose 'fbdev' as your video driver rather than 'ATI Radeon Mobility' - Setting your color depth to 16bbp helps too (especially with 'fbdev' option) - experimentation here helps! (DO NOT RUN THE TEST!)
8. To test your config either run 'XFree86' (which should get you a blue screen with a cross for a cursor) or run 'startx' which runs the GUI server and window managers (ie KDE, GNOME, etc...)
If these tests give you a blank display or garlbed screen you you can get back to the console by hitting ctrl+alt+Backspace
9. Hopefully, if you get this all working, you can refine your settings within the GUI, and set the XFree86 GUI server to boot by default at startup
As a newbie to linux too, this took me ALOT of trial and error, and it's a one hell of a steep learning curve!!!!
But i finally got it going after some days of fumbling around Linux forums and picking up usefull tidbits of info!
You can also try searching these forums and pages for extra info:
http://lists.linuxppc.org/
http://www.mandrakeclub.com/modules....wforum&forum=8
http://wijnand.rietman.biz/linux/mac/index.html?main
The YellowDogLinux forums also have some usefull info about video and display issues. A Google search will help here
I hope this is of some help to you - because i know just how friggin' frustrating this can be!!!!!!
GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!
Jason.
