Install issues on beige G3

[Chadwick S. Wachs]

I have a beige G3 with a 4 gig SCSI disk and a 80 gig IDE drive.  I use the
SCSI as the system disk and IDE for storage.  I have OS 9.2.2 on the SCSI
and it boots fine.  I have re-initialized that disk following the YD install
directions to a "T".  I then start the YD install process.  When it comes
time to partitioning the 3 partitions, the progress bar never moves on the
first 2 and gets 1/4 of the way down the 3rd (linux partition) and then
moves onto the next stage.  The install errors out with an inability to find
certain packages.  The package it can't find and asks me to manually change
is usually different each time I try this.  I have re-initialized all
drives, re-installed OS 9, etc, etc and still get the same exact error.
There is no way to get to a command line of any kind to try to debug this
nor can I boot into linux off the CD (a feature that would be nice).  If I
allow the installation to continue past this error, it immediately asks me
to set IP's and then gives me a final install error regarding time zone
packages, quits and reboots.  Debug mode does not good for the only command
that works is quit.

What gives?  My machine is listed in supported hardware.  I have no other
drives (other than floppy and CD) in the machine.  I have told BootX to
force SCSI mode (option has no effect on install).  I am not new with linux
(RedHat) but this seems very un-RedHat like.

Chad