Hey, I really wanted to make my computer dual boot into linux and windows xp, so I tried a few varieties out...but I was only able to get Debian to install. My question is that during the network portion of the installation process, it asked if I used DHCP. I said yes, but it was unable to find the information. I really want my cable modem installed so I can get the other packages I need (I only used the general install disk). Oh, and I think I have Woody, the stable version, instead of Sarge or Sid. Could you guys help me?

did it detect your network card? you might need to load the module for it. you will need to know what type of card it is

i use the debian installer, it works great and detects my network card. it is only about 114 meg download and you can get it here:

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

The card is integrated into the motherboard, beyond that, I'd have to find out. And when I tried to do it, it referred to my card as eth0, but it said that it couldn't autodetect the settings, even though that's how it's set up on windows. Do you think if I call my provider for the information, would that solve my problem?

Also, I have woody installed already, I just can't do anything because of no network connection to get the packages. Should I just uninstall and go for sarge, or do you think that it'll upgrade/uninstall for me?

Ok, I tried to install debian with the netinstaller, but I got this message:

Your network is probably not using the DHCP protocol. Alternatively, the DHCP server may be slow or some network hardware is not working properly.

How about telling us what kind of hardware is involved and all you know about the type of connection that you get from your ISP. Sometimes the cable/dsl modems require you that have a driver before they will work.

How about telling us what kind of hardware is involved and all you know about the type of connection that you get from your ISP. Sometimes the cable/dsl modems require you that have a driver before they will work or they use the useless IMHO PPPoE or PPPoA type connections where you have to connect before you actually use the internet.

I have a compaq presario 6000 (it comes with an athlon xp 2.13 ghz processor, onboard 10/100 ethernet, 512 mb ddr, a 120 Gig hard drive, 48x12x48x cd burner, and a 16x dvd rom, also onboard sound and video) with a 40 gig hard drive (the first half has several partitions for debian, the second half is an ntfs partition) and a geforce 4 64 MB ddr video card added in. I have a cable connection through charter digital. The cable goes through an external modem hooked in through my onboard ethernet. When it was installed, he just hooked it up and it worked, it didn't need an installation disk. Also, when you turn the computer on (and when windows loads, since this is the first time I've tried any other OS), it's connected, I don't have to manually connect.

That is better from the sounds of it then you get just a normal DHCP connection. According to this page the card is a netflex (for a deskpro 6000 so hopefully similar here) that is the same as in my old deskpro 4000 I have that uses the tlan module. I am thinking you may have run into a bug in the installer because the sarge installer worked perfectly on mine using the 3 boot floppy method and installing over the network. So which method did you try? Something you may want to do to a confirm problem with the installer you have is go and download knoppix and burn the iso to a CD then boot with it. If it finds the dhcp connection without problems then you can be certain that it is the installer you are using you would want the file with -EN in the name about 700mb in size if you do it.

I tried two versions of Knoppix, Morphix, and PHLAK, and all of those don't want to work...I keep getting I/O errors...LOTS of them. I'm excited about Debian because it's the first Linux that I "successfully" installed on this machine...I've always had trouble with the others...the iso of Suse 9.1 personal wouldn't install because it couldn't detect any of the packages, and Red Hat (when I finally got it installed), LILO wouldn't work, and I sat there with two operating systems on the computer with the ability to access only one (although now I think I'll be able to install it with no problems, but I'm too geared on getting Debian to work now...). I used the CD method. Maybe I should try the 3 floppy method...but that would mean getting floppys...oh well, I'm running out of CDs anyway.

Definitely try the floppies it only a small download anyway and you get to know right away if it detects the network. The ones I have in my archive directory are boot.img, root.img and net-drivers.img and you will need to get the rawwrite.exe to be able to write them under windows. When you get to the part where it ask if you want to load extra drivers put in the net-drivers disk. For the other bootable CD's you have tried it sounds like they are not getting it downloaded properly for some reason or when you are burning them the image is not written correctly. BTW just noticed somehow I double posted the first time it looks like the preview did it strange indeed.

My CD burner could very well messed all of them up...I don't know. I'll go to a friend's house and try to burn them over there. It seems kinda funny though that two versions of Debian work (one worked without any flaws, the other I had to use my DVD-ROM drive to boot with), but the other disks won't work. The I/O errors I'm getting sound like it's having trouble with the CD.

Could be a bad brand/batch of blank CD's as well them things are as bad as floppies sometimes depending on the brand you get/burner you are using them with there's no rhyme or reason to it.

I got more CDs and burned a working copy of Knoppix...and it detected my Cable modem right when it loaded up...in fact I'm writing this post while on Knoppix. There has to be some kind of bug or something with the Debian installer...

Exactly Knoppix is just Debian with some damn fine script work thrown in. Did you try the floppy method of install yet?

What floppies do I download?