I am somewhat new to linux (especially on apple computers) but I have been trying to install ubuntu 12.04 for the past 2 days, using what I could find in the forums as a guide. So far I have tried both the Live and text based installers with no luck-both never get far enough to actually start installing anything. I am probably doing something wrong but I have no idea what it is.

The live installer loads the kernel and briefly boots to a white screen with text followed by a solid black screen.

The text based installer starts working after I type cli-expert-powerpc64 and the kernel loads, but after a while it shows a screen that looks like this:
[ 1. ]
[ 1. ]

^this goes all the way to the bottom of the screen which just a bit odd imo.

These are the specs of the G5 I am fighting with:
Power Mac G5 Dual 2.0GHz (late 2005)
Nvidia 6600LE Display Adapter
2 GB ram; 1.5 TB HDD

I would love to get this working so I can help with linux support on PowerPC processors in the future since apple kicked the platform aside.

I am frustrated with this machine and cannot let it win!