just popping in the cd resulted in a 8-bit looking loading screen with an XP like progresss bar.
Judging by the progress bar it would make it 90% of the way and then just stop. I left it for 20 minutes.
I'm sure it must have froze up at 90%

Changing the vga video settings to 800x600 16 bit before booting 
actually let it get past the loading progress bar and then i saw a blank
command prompt I guess with a single blinkinb underscore for a few seconds and then 
I got this error message:

Failed to Start X server (your graphical interface).
It is likely that it is not set up correctly.
Would you  like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?

<yes>

bla bla bla (if you need to know what the bla bla text was I can try again and get it)
(EE) No devices detected
Fatal Server Error: no screens found