Hallo All,
How small is an installation of Debian without any applications but KDE or Gnome included?
/Rob

50M in woody

With Sarge the base system installation takes about 250 MB disk space, maybe a bit more. Then you can install x-window-system-core and either kde-core or gnome-core, which will install only the essential components.

Then you can install only the packages/applications you need and all the dependencies will be automatically resolved. Apt-get installs only the necessary dependencies but the smarter APT frontends, aptitude and synaptic, default to installing also the "recommended" dependencies, although you can easily change these default settings.

If you want a really lean GNU/Linux desktop system, Debian can deliver.

DamnSmallLinux (aka "DSL") http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ is based on Debian. The DSL folks are *obsessed* with keeping it small, tight, and fast; and having it still be usable as a desktop.

I use DSL and really like it for old hardware. But be aware that DSL is NOT based on pure Debian. In fact, the X system has been heavily modified, which means that debs that depend on the debian standard X system can cause a DSL install to totally crap out.

On the plus side for DSL, it performs VERY well. I tried the most minimal possible Sarge install on my old laptop, and it was still slow (with fluxbox). I have been told that a true Debian wizard could optimize it and make it super fast, but I am but a layman, and after compiling a few kernels, removing some startup services, and removing a bunch of modules, it was still slow.
DSL, on the other hand, is quite fast. It comes with lots of useful apps and the dsl repositories have some cool bigger apps if you want them. On the down side, there really isn't a true package management system. I have not found a way to simply upgrade or uninstall.
Somebody may be able to correct me on this, but I think Knoppix is based on pure debian, and can be upgraded to full debian by simply using the debian apt repositories. But it is not nearly as small as DSL, and comes with KDE, as opposed to fluxbox. You can try out both Knoppix and DSL with no worries, since they are live CDs. If you like them, they're both pretty easy to install to hard drive.

Good Luck,
HD