I decide to reinstall my debian again after I mess up the whole system two days ago. So I start with a Debian 3.1 stable DVD disc 1. My objective is bringing up my system up under Debain testing. So it is where funny things happened. The result of my installation highly depends on the steps I do. If I install package in wrong order then the outcome will be very different. So far my best try is
1. Bring up the system with basic setting without any unnecessary package. Of course no X-windows.
2. install hostap-source and compile it under kernel-headers-2.4.27-2-686-smp and run it. (DWL-520)
3. Get online and update my source and stable package list
4. dist-upgrade all the security patch and packages.
5. dist-upgrade to testing. Everything is still at a minimal at this point
6. Install x-window, gnome, and Xorg

So the problems happened at the following places:
1. At step 5, I found my apt-setup dissapear
2. hostap-source can be compile but when I load it they tell me it's the wrong kernel version at step 5 also.
3. My Xorg(6.9) can up and run at the beginning. But after a certain number of reboots. It will failed and freeze my computer(I can pressed a button and see it's shutting down but keyboard has no response at all)

For some reason I doubt there might also be a problem of my hard drive but not sure. I use Debian for 2 years but rarely see things like this happened before. I am downloading debian testing DVD and try again later. Does anybody has the same thing or any suggestion? I've been working on this for two days already.......

Can you explain what problems you encounter while installing packages from the DvD?

Sounds like a corrupt DVD if it hangs the install... Maybe you should verify the MD5 sum before burning it to the disk?

Sorry for the ambiguous statements. The DVD is ok because that was the disc I used roughly 15 month ago when I install debian. However, the sarge is still testing at that moment.

1. It's not just apt-setup but some other utilities like apt-file. These apt tools all got deleted for some reason in the middle of my upgrade(Is it because I was requested to remove base-config?)
2. I compile the hostap in the beginning. It worked. But after I upgrade the hostap and kernel. I try to do it again. It still looked fine when I am compiling and installing it. But when I reboot my computer. It tells me "unresolved symbols...blah blah blah...". I assume it's either the kernel header problem(2.6.15) or hostap-source problem.
3. It is actually the fatal issue for my system and I can always reproduce it after x hours system upgrade. In the first moment I can run everything pretty well. But after a while it will just fail to get in X-windows because of some unknown problem. It's not the worse, it will freeze there when all of my keyboard input bacame invalid. But the system crashed? No. Because when I pressed the power button, it will start its shutdown process again.
4. There are some other small problem like sometimes I thought I already check my configuration. But when I open the file again, it is still the old one. I suspect my hard drive will constantly lose data or configuration modification something. But I can't prove it. The drive is 4.5 years old.
5. Last question, why I can't find everywhere about Xorg 6.8 and kernel 2.6.12 in debian's mirror site? It will be quite trouble if I want to drive my ATI9600 in Xorg 6.9 with Kernel either 2.6.8 or 2.6.15.

1. I think it's because as you said you removed base-config.

2. Not sure of this one. Maybe the upgraded package is slightly different from the older one.

3. Surely points to some hardware problem. Random problems always seem to point to hardware problems in my experience.

4. Not sure what you did, so cannot answer this one!

5. I don't have a problem with ATi drivers on 2.6.15 and Xorg 6.9. 3d is enabled.

On the whole, I think you also need to check the hardware. These problems you face don't look as though it's entirely caused by a software misconfiguration.

you might try using the most updated builds of the Debian installer

You can use your dvd for minimal sarge install but try linux26 instead of hitting enter for install start(with 2.4x kernel). Setup internet or network connection. Get sarge security updates for minimal system. Then change /etc/apt/sources.list to point to etch/testing, with testing security too.Hopefully your minimal install includes nano or some other editor.
Apt-get update and apt-get install aptitude. Then apt-cache search linux-image and aptitude --with recommends install linux-image(kernel version you want). Next install xwindow-system if you want desktop and setup xorg as you want it.
Once sytem boots and x works try aptitude --with recommends dist-upgrade. You should now get working etch minimal install to which you now add other needed packages for optimal setup. Good luck.