New install - issues

[Rob Guglielmetti]

Hello all.  I'm a long-time Linux newbie.  That's right, I 
install it (x86), have a collection of issues, eventually give 
up, then six months later I try again on new hardware 
(x86), different distro, and have new problems!

Anyway I recently installed YDL2.2 on my G4 PowerBook 
550.  Install worked fine, but I have a few issues I'd like 
to ask about here:

::: Partitioning :::
I set up four partitions (OS9, OSX, YDL and a shared data 
partition).  The idea was to have a partition available to 
share files between OSX and YDL.  It's about 6GB and I 
formatted it as HFS because I heard that YDL can't do 
HFS+.  But then I read somewhere in the forums that HFS 
"has problems with large disks".  Should I rethink this?  
What is "large" by HFS' standards?  Should I make a 
"small" HFS partition and use it purely for shuttling data 
back and forth?  

Speaking of which, does anyone have experience with 
those USB flash data drives?  The prices have really come 
down recently; you can get a 128MB drive for about 
eighty bucks.  This may be an easier way to share data.  
Anyone using these with YDL?  They are supposedly 
supported under Linux...

::: CD Eject :::
Most of my keys work properly (brightness, volume, 
console switching), but the CD eject key does not.  How 
can I fix that, and failing that, is there another way to 
eject it, maybe from the command line???  My YDL installer 
is trapped in there!!

::: CD drive :::
When I double click on the CD icon on my desktop (KDE or 
Gnome), I get an error that it's not a valid block device.  
Ideas?

::: Modem :::
I tried the RedHat internet setup tool, and it was unable 
to find my modem.  This was always a problem for me in 
x86, modem support.  I was hoping that the internal 
modem on the PB would work.  Anyone have this working?

         ====================
 Rob Guglielmetti <rpg777@earthlink.net>
    http://home.earthlink.net/~rpg777