Both the graphical and text installs get to the point where the install
image is transfered to the hard drive and then Installing Packages just
sits there doing nothing, there is no CD-ROM activity, no hard drive
activity, nothing. Switiching to other terminals to see what's happening
doesn't show any errors, last few lines:

Alt-F3
* {'hdb1': '/boot', 'hdb5': '/'}

Alt-F4
<6>Adding Swap: 136512k swap-space (priority -1)
<4>EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
<4>EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended

The system:
AMD K-6 400MHz, 256MB Ram, Maxtor 90845 D4 & Seagate ST38422A, 2 (two) IDE
CD-ROM drives 40x, Intel 82557, STB Velocity 128