[TriLUG] I'm a linux newbie!

[JWarner]

Hello,

I'm currently taking a course at Wake Tech, it is a linux course.

I have extensive hardware knowledge, so I pieced together a machine, that I would assume would load RedHat 7.2 with no trouble.

My machine consists of:
691 chipset motherboard (slot 1)
Celeron 300A CPU
196 MB SDRAM
15 GB Quantum HDD
Sony 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy
44x CD-Rom (I believe it is a Delta)
MSI GeForce 2 Pro 64 MB Video Card
SMC 1255 Network Card

Hard drive is set to master on IDE0, CD is set to master on IDE1
Pin b21 on the CPU is covered, making my motherboard think it is a 100 FSB CPU.  My problems occur with or without this covering.

Redhat 7.2 is a copy of CD's ordered from www.linuxdistros.com.

On with the install:
1) Chose the graphical installer upon boot from CD.
2) anaconda loaded
3) Chose English as Install language, kybd config is generic 105 intl. pc, US English, with Dead keys enabled.
4) mouse is 2 button (2 button generic ps/2), emulate 3 buttons is checked.
5) Install type is Custom
6) Disk partitioning setup: I chose "Have installer automatically partition".  It reported that the drive was not initialized (I had just run "zap.exe" and "wipe.exe" in dos mode on another machine [zap and wipe are utilities I downloaded from IBM.COM])  Asked me if I wanted to initialize the drive, I said yes.
7) told it to remove all partitions on system prior to continuing.
8) chose GRUB as my boot installer, told it to put it on /dev/hda (Master Boot Record)

went on, told it to install everything.  All seemed fine, it created swap, formatted, installed packages (took about 45 minutes), and then it rebooted my system.

I went into my bios, told it to boot from HDD0 (in bios), and saved and exited.

POST sequence went without any errors, proceeded to "Verifying DMI Pool Data" and then sat there.  Nothing happened.  I don't know what is wrong, but I would assume (that might be part of my problem) that it would start loading Linux.  I tried pressing keys, seemed to respond only to "Ctrl+Alt+Del".  No messages (nothing like the shutdown messages I received when I hit "Ctrl+Alt+Del" when I had RedHat 5.2 on the same system.

Any help would be, well, helpful.

Thanks in advance to any advice given by anyone.

Regards,
Jeff Warner