Durring installation (using lizzard) I get:
NVIDIA Unknown chipset (0x002c) rev 17
in the video card configuration page. Trying a video card probe or testing a
video resolution causes the screen to mess-up and lock-up, although the
installation program seems to still be working (CD and HDD activity).I've
tried Ctrl-Alt-Bksp and Ctrl-Alt-Del but nothing worked. If I don't try any
tests, then the screen still messes up after installation just before the
logon process. Durring the installation, the 'tetris' game works fine and
the screen is fine (except when I test or probe).

According to the Caldera web-site, NVIDIA cards aren't supported but there
are X server patches/drivers available for the chipset.

My question is: how do I install a new driver if I can't even get into linux
in the first place because installation never completes? Can I force the
install wizzard to load a generic VGA Xserver? (what would the command line
be) Or can I install Linux for character-only mode?

Overall, the easiest way to go is to install the latest version of COL,
rather than one that is well over a year and a half old.  That would be
COLeD2.4.  It will most likely have native support for your videocard.

Barring this, you can still install, but will have to either use the
SVGA server (if it supports that card at all), or run in console mode.
If you're going to be starting in console mode, then you'll definitely
want to do a LISA install, found on the CD in /col/launch/lisa.

--
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 L. Friedman              bee...@earthling.net

 The alt.os.linux.caldera FAQ:
 http://netllama.ipfox.com/COL_FAQ.html
 Step-by-step help for common COL problems:
 http://netllama.ipfox.com/stepbystep.htm