Sawtooth G4 boot issue

hello all,
perhaps this question has been asked but if so i could not find any 
references on the forums or on google.

i have a "sawtooth" G4 400MHz with a Rage 128 Pro 32MB and 384 MB RAM.  
i cannot for the life of me boot any discs other than the OS 9 and OS X 
install CD's.  i have tried every command for Open Firmware that i have 
ever heard of (hold "C"; hold "option"; hold 
"option+apple+shift+delete"; boot into OF and set "boot-device" to the 
CD drive) and yet nothing.  does anyone else have gentoo running on a 
"sawtooth" G4 (the one with an AGP video card and the vertically aligned 
sound ports)?

the only thing positive that has ever happened is that by hold "option" 
as i boot i am presented with two icons, one is an icon for the OS X 
folder on my hard disk, and the other is an icon for the gentoo CD (a CD 
with the tux logo on it).  if i select the CD icon the screen refreshes 
but the same images stay there in inverse video and the mouse still 
works but nothing is active, the buttons cannot be activated the CD 
drive does not spin and after 1.5 hours still nothing happens.

does anyone have any suggestions?
thanks,
-rod day
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