Kernel exception while installing on 6400

[Jeff Berman]

Hello,

I'm trying to install YellowDog Linux 2.2 on a Performa 6400 (48MB RAM, 8GB
hard drive, built-in video, very stock system) but the installer -- either
text or graphical -- keeps crashing.

When doing an "Everything" installation, it always fails at the end of
installing the glibc-common package, with a signal 4 error:  Illegal
instruction.

The installer will sort of crash out and dump a bunch of stuff on the
screen:

Oops: Exception in kernel mode, sig: 4
NIP: C01B3B44 XER: 00000000 LR: C0169E14 SP: C083BC50 REGS: c083bba0 TRAP:
0700 Not tainted
MSR: 00089032 EE: 1 PR: 0 FP: 0 ME: 1 IR/DR: 11
TASK=c083a000(14) 'yi' Last syscall: 5
Last math c083a000 last altivec 00000000

then there's a bunch of hex values, then it says:

Illegal instruction


Then the installer is ended abnormally and it says that it's safe to reboot
the system.

What can this be?  I've tried this probably 10-15 times now different ways
(default, expert, with and without a boot partition, "Everything",
"Developer", etc.), each time deleting/recreating the partitions from
scratch.

This isn't the same error that other 6400 owners have encountered where they
get a script error while copying packages to the hard drive; for me, the
"Transferring packages" step completes successfully... It just fails during
the package installations.

Is it normal for that dump to show "last altivec" when the 603e processor
doesn't even have that?

Thank you for any light you guys can shed.  I've been trying to install
Linux on that system for three days now.  Oh, and YellowDog 2.1 installed
just fine a few months ago!

Jeff