System Unusable after initial installation.

[Aredridel]

> 1 - Log in as the normal user:  
>     Things look normal, but no network defined.
>     Cannot su to root:
> 	"su: incorrect password"
>     No error listed in any of the /var/log files...

pam_wheel does not log failures, I noticed, and it is enabled per default.
If you either add the user to the wheel group or disable pam_wheel in
/etc/pam.d/su, this will work.

> 3 - Haven't figured out how to go to single user when booting, but by 
>     using "telinit s" I went to single user to see if I could edit
>     anything.  Not only did I see the same job control issue, but
>     when it placed my vi process into background mode I lost all
>     keyboard control, except for CNT/ALT/DEL.

appending "1" to the kernel boot command line should toss you into single
user mode. 

I'm not sure on the other issues, but that's what I know so far.

Aredridel