suprise yet another problem installing linux, It works for the first 5 secs, then when it goes to install screen decides it doesn't want to work anymore, it is a compaq factory presario usb keyboard by the way and it is Red Hat, like it matters cause SUSE doe sthe same and if I'm a betting man I say Mandrake & Lindows will follow lead, any suggestions would be GREATLY appriecated cause I'm about done with linux

Hi,
These are the best suggestions that I can offer:

Pick one distribution and stick with it .

Be a little more descriptive. Your keyboard works for the first 5 seconds and then it stops working? Or does it ever work? Or does everything just freeze at the first install screen?

If two distros are giving you the same problem, then I would suspect a hardware problem, but am not sure it is the keyboard. I assume that you have a reason for believing that it is at fault. What is that reason? Do you have access to another keyboard that you can try?
Does your machine have another system working on it, or have you put one together just for linux? If you have just put it together, you might double check the cabling, jumpers, and whatnot.
Have you looked in BIOS, and made sure that all is well there? Don't know what kind of configuration you are trying to use, but at the least, I would disable PnP, make sure that my harddrive is enabled (assuming you have more than one), etc.

I have been doing some checking, and found that there have been problems in the past with a USB keyboard during the install. I have found nothing definate. However, I still think that the above suggestions are valid. Let me know.

Yeah dowmun is right about the bios bit, I had lots of problems with my usb keyboard (somethings in Linux seemed to like it, others not - esp. bootloaders) until I enabled usb keyboards in my bios. All of a sudden *boom* no problems since.

A lot of motherboards seem to ship with this option disabled for some reason and people don't normally notice because it doesn't really seem to have much of an effect on Windows.