Install crashes before partitioning

[Joe Freeman]

I am an experienced Linux user, but a Mac and YDL newbie. We have a 
PowerBook G4 12 (2003) on which we just did a fresh install of Mac OS X 
10.3.4, following the procedure outlined in "A Companion to Installing 
Yellow Dog Linux 3.0.1" to partition for half Mac OS X and half YDL. 
When partitioning was ready to begin, the installer fails, no matter 
which options were chosen. Our experience is similar to this:

http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/pipermail/yellowdog-general/2004-January/011321.html

This seems to be a common problem, according to the mailing lists. The 
best hint I could find for a solution was given by Chris Gehlker:

> I agree that you can install YDL with Panther present. What you can't 
> do is install YDL on any drive that was partitioned with the Panther 
> version of Disk Utility. This is not just my experience. I was at an 
> installfest and no one could successfully instal YDL on any machine 
> that had been touched by Disk Utility version 10.4. It really doesn't 
> matter whether the partitions are journaled or not. Even completely 
> erasing a disk with Disk Utility 10.4 and trying to install YDL in free 
> space won't work.

which is from this:

http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/pipermail/yellowdog-general/2003-November/010745.html

My question is:

   Is it still necessary for me to hunt down and install an older version
   of Disk Utility to get this install done, or is there now perhaps a
   simpler solution?

Everything we're doing here is utterly vanilla. I guess I expected 
putting YDL on a new PowerBook alongside Mac  OS X would be 
straightforward, especially since I had complete freedom to wipe out the 
disk and install everything fresh on this brand new PowerBook.