It has been a while- a move and several headaches later. I finally got around to downloading the SuSE 10.1 "remastered" CD images, and burned them onto discs. I'm trying to get them to load and install Linux onto the G3 Mac, but it's just not working for me. It keeps hanging on the installer. I get a blinking cursor at the top-left of the screen, after telling it to install, and it never gets past that point.
I've had this issue with both 10.3 and 10.2 previously. I'm curious about any command-line operators/switches I can use when attempting an install, to see if that gets past the hang-point. I'm wondering if there's something it's misinterpreting or not finding.
Could it be attributes set on the drive? How can I wipe the drive and start fresh, so Linux is the only OS on the machine? Would the previously posted method for wiping the drive work for what I'm trying to do, or cause more problems than it fixes?
Looks like I've got some more research ahead of me before I get this thing running the way I want it to.

--edit

after looking around on the forums here, I tried installing using the following line at the prompt:
Everything installed pretty straightforward after that. The system is running, but I don't have it connected to my home network. I haven't updated it or done anything too intensive to test it yet. It runs some basic stuff that my 2-year-old daughter might find interesting (potato guy and a few other things), but I'm not sure about much beyond that.
My daughter will have the opportunity to learn about computers at her own pace, and I won't have to worry as much about her doing anything to my system. We'll see how it goes.