I tried those commands you listed and I didn't see any obvious errors. What are the cheat codes you're talking about? Are they the different options you can try that are listed when you hit F2 at the boot: prompt?
I tried running it with the gnome GUI, that started loading, I saw the Gnome splash screen, but then it crashed out to the prompt with an error I dont remember. I havent tried the other GUIs.

I looked at the mandrake site last night, and that looks like it has a fairly friendly installer. If I did create some free space on my HDD for it, it would install there if I told it to, and set up the correct dual boot setup? I was also pointed to a Linux release called Lindows OS, and that also looked pretty friendly, but it seemed like you had to pay for that one. At least I wasnt able to find a link to download the thing.

Brian