Thanks for the suggestions, been busy with holidays. Gonna tinker around this weekend a bit and post whatever solution i find is easiest. (I may work a couple just for ***** and giggles)
The thrill of victory or agony of defeat will be posted after I give it a go.
As far as the DVD media goes, the speed thing is something I have heard before somewhere and I will definitely test that with 1 more disk, although I still think it unlikely to be the culprit since the RC1 installed on G4, and release installed (but did not boot) on G5.
Either way, compared to 5 years ago ppc linux this is cake.
Results incoming soon…