I am still having trouble getting Debian to start in a GUI mode. This is caused by the nvidia geforce 9200 card on this laptop.
I read through the debian.org pages. Also downloaded a script to check the card I have. It came up with:

peter@vaya2:~/Desktop$ ./nvidia-versions.sh
Uh oh. Your card is not supported by any driver version.
./nvidia-versions.sh: line 27: VERSIONS: bad array subscript
./nvidia-versions.sh: line 38: VERSIONS: bad array subscript
./nvidia-versions.sh: line 45: VERSIONS: bad array subscript
Uh oh. Your card is only supported by the 71.86 legacy drivers series, which is not in Lenny.

Question: what is Lenny?

I will get to the bottom of this. Ubuntu works with this card, which is why I can write this.

In consule mode I don't have wifi, and neither do I have a wired internet connection. So I can't do all the stuff it says on debian .org, like apt-get install module -assistant.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't have wired ethernet workig without a GUI.. that doesnt't make sense.. Can you run lspci on teh laptop and copy the info here about your video card and Ethernet controller ?

I think we need to get your Ethernet NIC working first it will make everything else much easier. it will also be easier to get working without a active network connection than the graphics will be. .

please post the lspci info about your NIC.

Sorry, misunderstanding: the wired network would work/ does work if I can plug in somewhere, it's just that I don't have one where I am. At a friends office I can plug it in, but not whenever I want.

First, which drivers are you using? I know your nvidia card is supported by the linux nvidia driver that is packaged for Debian by Randall Donald.

Second, since you have issues getting online, would it be possible to download something at your friend's office and put it on a jump drive or burned to a cd-rw?

It sounds like you need current drivers for your X server to run properly.

trouble is no matter which route you take either the the Debian method with module-assistant, or the NVIDIA installer from nvidias website you will need build-essential installed and there are plenty of dependencies for it.. You really need an internet connection or the Proper CD/DVD media

I also believe they are mistaken about what version of the nvidsia driver you need. the newest driver from nvidia says it supports your card in the readme file..

Build-Essential is on CD1 or DVD1
The nvidia Driver source is on CD5 or DVD1

So to do this offline you should either grab DVD1 or CD 1 and CD 5

If you have CD1 you can install build-essential (hopefully all ti's dependencies are on teh same disc) then you can either install the driver form nvidias site or the one from the Debian repositories

Tell us which way you want to go.

Thanks for the replies. Last night I downloaded CD1 of the new Debian 5 and installed it. It works!!! Can't get the wifi working, but when I can plug in to a wired network, I'll try and solve that one!
Maybe I haven't got 3D graphics, but at least I have a GUI!

Question: what is Lenny?

Answer:
Lenny is a pair of binoculars with feet. He is used as binoculars by the other toys in various situations he can talk and was a playable character on the Toy Story Racer Video Game. He was voiced by Joe Ranft.

http://www.smxi.org for a simple way to install nvidia drivers.

For the wireless problem what card and chipset?

Did you install build-essential yet ? if you can install that from the CD you downloaded, you will be halfway to getting your wireless and Nvidia drivers working. You may have to download a couple small driver packages on another machine and copy them to yout Debian box, but it wouldn't be much.

With the CD you installed from in the drive, open a terminal, su - to root and do the following command

aptitude update
aptitude install build-essential

If that succeeds and i think it should.. we can tell you exactly what you need to download to get your nvidia and wireless working.

Could you post the output of the following command for us ?

lspci

Thanks !! and glad you are making progress.

peter@vaya2:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Host Bridge (rev b1)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Memory Controller (rev b1)
00:03.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 LPC Bridge (rev b2)
00:03.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Memory Controller (rev b1)
00:03.2 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP79 SMBus (rev b1)
00:03.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Memory Controller (rev b1)
00:03.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation Device 0a98 (rev b1)
00:03.5 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Co-processor (rev b1)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b1)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev b1)
00:08.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP79 High Definition Audio (rev b1)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Bridge (rev b1)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Ethernet (rev b1)
00:0b.0 SATA controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 AHCI Controller (rev b1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:15.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:16.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:17.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:18.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 9200M G (rev b1)
06:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01

Also, the CD1 I used doesn't have Synaptic, which is nice to install all the other things I want, once I get the wireless working! Might get on the wired net tonight, if I can get to the office.

The Wifi b/g/n adapter is an Atheros AR928X, which works only with the ath9k driver. The Lenny kernel does not support this. However, the kernel for Debian's next release, Squeeze, will. While it is not recommended to use experimental Debian kernels, for this there is currently no other choice to get Wifi working. You can grab a 2.6.28 kernel from /dists/trunk at the Debian Kernel team repository. See http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernel for details on how to get a newer kernel.


ath9k - Linux Wireless
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k