New user having trouble with new install

[Jonathan Levine <jonathan.canuck.levine@gmail.com>]

Greetings:

I'm a hardware guy, and not a linux wonk, so I hope you'll all be
gentle and use words without too many syllables.

I've just completed the "small cd" internet install of the current
distribution on a small-footprint pc based on the VIA EDEN ESP
6000.  I went with all the defaults and it seemed to complete
uneventfully.  However, on boot it tanks with a "microcode: no
support for this CPU vendor" error.

What's weird is that this same hardware is previously known to
have worked with the Debian 3.1 distribution of about ten years
ago.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

Jonathan