Hello, I got tired of dealing with Suse on my desktop, felt that this would be a good time to try out debian. So, I tried to use a netinstall since I didn't feel like downloading all those discs.

So, I got the base system installed from the netinst cd and I got through the setup up to the point where I set up apt, and that never works. If I choose to go through ftp, every repo refuses to connect, and if I go through http, I get a gzip error that stdin isn't in gzip format, and another error that certain files aren't available.

I happen to know that the DCHP on my school's network is particularly slow, and that my dchpc kept timing out on a slackware install. So, I suspect that my slow dchp is preventing me from getting an internet connection. How do I give it more time before timing out? Thanks.

Well, it appears that the dchp isn't the problem. I have indeed been assigned an IP address, however with each repo, the screen sits at "connecting to <repo name>" for a long time, until I finally get an error screen saying that apt reports "Failed to fetch" "connection timed out" and "some index files failed to download"

Proxy server?

I'm on a campus network, so I'm not sure of their internals, but if there is one fedora and suse autodetected it. I'll call and ask.

Well etch beta 3 doesn't want to detect my proxy so the old sarge installer probably won't either. I had to set debconf priority (press ESC during installation and its near the end of the menu) to low and enter it manually. Hope you get it working.

Thanks for the help, but after calling I discovered that this is caused by the ideosyncracies of this particular network. Solved.

EDIT: Spoke too soon, there must be some other problem. I can resolve DNS's with ping, but I can't connect to the mirrors.