you were right, I forgot to turn on VT. keyboard was already on. however, still no dice. the hard drive was being accessed for a longer period of time (which of course made me nervous), but still no video. it just said "uncompressing...loading..." and nothing else... when I tried the 2.5.44 kernel, the farthest I ever got was to have it print messages to the printer... grr... I'll figure this toy out someday. for now, I'm gonna abandon it and play with my other new toys...nailgun, air-hammer, air-paint sprayer, impact wrench, etc. whee! thanks for the help, though...
