i've got the complete debian gnu/linux 3.0 woody dist. (~ 10 CDs)

i want to install debian, but shall i install woody and upgrade it,

or

buy the new cd's?

how big would the download be??



thanks

For a desktop system I prefer Sarge. If you buy the cd's you'll donate as well, so buy I would still wait for the stable release of Sarge before any purchase.

Downloading it all still requires about 8 iso images.

Since you already have the Woody CD's, my opinion would be to install it. Only install what you need and then change your /etc/apt/sources.list to point to sarge and do a dist-upgrade.

In theory, you only need to install Debian once.

I suggest that you use the Woody installer (provided that it isn't too difficult for you -- Sarge installer is easier) and install just the base system. Then edit the /etc/apt/sources.list so that it points to Testing (instead of Stable) and then do "apt-get update" and "apt-get -f dist-upgrade". The less packages you have installed, the simpler and easier the upgrade will be.

Supporting the distro you use is a good investment if you want to use that distro also in the future. However, because Debian is FREE, I'm not at all sure if anything of the money I pay for the Debian installation CDs will really go to funding the actual Debian project.

If someone can affirm that the Debian project actually gets money when I buy the released CD package, then I'll be glad to buy the Sarge installation CDs once they are published. Debian is the kind of free distro that I'm willing to pay for.

Besides, it'll be endlessly cool to have the full Debian installation CD set, which you can show to all your geek friends to make them green with envy.