[ydl-gen] Are newbie questions OK here?

[bri]

>'<keywords> site:terrasoftsolutions.com'

Ok I got the archive bit going as soon my query bounced back to me.

I did my first ever Linux install yesterday [it was a Debian install, ftp-style]. It went great after a ton of trial and error [rebooting into OS X to re-read an out-dated debian installation guide in Acrobat Pro], but, even though I had the Powerbook dual-booting, the first time I tried to alter the resolution inside the gnome desktop, i got all the wacky horizontal bs on my LCD and my external crt. No good

This morning I started burning Yellow Dog Installers, and did the YDL install. I had to reboot off my Debian installer to delete the partitions created within one pre-existing hfs+ partition AND be able to see them as accessible free space. The YDL manual partitioning would not give me access to the 'free' space, otherwise.

So, after that weirdness I ran the YDL installer, and considering its entire development was on macintosh, it seemed to ID a lot of stuff as 'generic this or that'..funny, considering the deb installer (200 MBs smaller in size) had everything pegged (even a Matias keyboard and its stupid usb hub which no Mac can recognize consistently).

So, moment of truth, and not only did I get no video, I also was told after the final config of the completed installation, that "The X server (?) cannot be used to run a desktop"... blah blah, and then it asked if I wanted to know why? Yes, i clicked, Did i want a detailed report? Yes again... so what happens? No report, no log, just a reboot into a CLI-only interface.

Yikes. Over in the archives (and all over the Linux/PPC web, in general, it looks like 3 out of 4 posts is regarding the 9600.

One question for starters:

When i first booted ('c' key down) to try the YDL cd1 and install, the verbose stuff after I typed :install  all listed radeon 9600...Monitor 1 (lcd), Monitor 2 (crt) 3-button PS/2 mouse (actually an 11-button kensington Turbo Pro track, but hey)... it looked rosy.... and then, after the install, all of a sudden we have 'can't ID this, 'generic' that, 'something on usb 1', etc, culminating in can't run the X server window manager (sic)

What is up with that?
thanks

Brian Stegner