I went through a similar thing many years ago trying to install Red Hat.

The Red Hat installer has had a shell prompt for as long as I can remember, definitely since 7.1:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.1-Manual/install-guide/ch-guimode.html#S2-GUIMODE-VIRTUAL-CONSOLES

I'd be amazed if the Mandrake installer didn't have one too (unless it only has one in "expert" mode or something).
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