Sorry, I have no clue about your question. However, I have several AMD K6 chips (pentium-equivalent) lying around should you trip over a motherboard that'll run them. That would solve your 486 problem, I think, so let me know if such a chip would help you out.
Fred - thanks for the offer - however I do have a specific device I am targeting. Ebox2300sx. I have no options on the hardware. It would be a great solution hardware wise but software is being a bit of a pain at this time.
Johnny - thanks for the info. I actually have debian booted on the device but then EVERYTHING is so much different on debian than centos. I was also trying a redhat 9 install and put a 2.6 kernel on it. However, I realize this is not the best solution. BUT - to try it out and get something working with the other programs I need I thought that might be a valid short term path to check things out.
Thanks guys,
Jerry