Couple dozen questions from a mac virgin

Alright i was at the local landfill today and i found a shiny emac and took it home. It's a 700mhz\384mb\40gb\combo\geforce2\osx9.1.
I don't have a keyboard for it yet, just a mouse but i turned it on anyway and it booted up into the os until when it looked like it was finished loading a screen pops up that says it didn't load my quicktime software because it is outdated and asks me if i want to update it. It doesn't matter if i click yes or no, either way the desktop icons appear and then the machine freezes and i can't click on anything although i can still move the mouse and in the upper left hand corner of the screen there is something continuously blinking just to the left of the the little apple. Now i'm pc knowledgeable but i know zero about macs. Could this have anything to do with the fact that there is no keyboard? Does this sound like a software issue? I plan on getting a keyboard in a couple of days. When i have one is there any kind of safe mode i can access to attempt to fix the problem? If i can get my hands on an osx 9.1 cd will i be able to do a re-install? Can other forms of linux be installed on a mac? Anything else i should know?

If you made it this far thanks for reading my thread.
Since i've never used a mac i'm looking forward to learning about this rig.

Welcome to the forum.
The problem is not related to the lack of a keyboard. If the eMac has gotten to that point in the bootup then it's almost certainly a system software issue. When you get a keyboard hold down the shift key during the startup. This will load a minimal system (control panels and extensions are not loaded). You can use any USB keyboard, not just a Mac model. Some of the keys may be different but you'll be able to get started. The flashing icon is not an issue. It's either the alarm in the Date/Time control panel or it's an indicator of an attempt to make a network connection. Although this model is older it will run OS X, including Tiger. If you can get the original disks you would be able to restore things to the factory installation and add Panther or Tiger later. For good info about older Macs try www.lowendmac.com.

Thanks Badger. So if i get it into safe-mode(or whatever it's called in mac) is there any sort of restore option that doesn't require the disk?

There is no restore feature but if you can get it started with the shift key-boot then you can manually remove items from the extensions or control panels folders (in the system folder). Simply drag them to the desktop. Otherwise, if you can get a system CD you can do a "clean install" of the system. This creates a new system, disables the old system and preserves everything else on the disk.

OK great. Thanks again Badger.

Here's another link you might want to bookmark for future reference. It's a guide to upgrading the eMac hardware, even overclocking the CPU, with an illustrated procedure for opening the case: http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/eMac/eMac-upgrade.html.