today i had some weird experience in installing debian.

first of all i want to say that in installing debian more than once, 9 out of every 10 attempts ...

DEBIAN ...... FAILSSSSSSS miserably

may be its just between debian and my computer

anyways ........

i was really excited to get the new installer

with the new installer i was able to do net install of a basic system

then somehow i was able to install gnome by doing the apt-get thing

[ i did not run tasksel ...... i should have done it ]

then i realized noo this is not the way .. lets reinstall it

damn .... then the nightmare starts ....... the next attempts usually fails

anyways i decided to download the complete CD 1 of woody and install it

it installed but then

when doing apt-get install x-window-system

it locked up .... screaming something " insert Cd in cdrom " blah blah blah

i dont know why the hell it was trying to use cd since i also added http as a source for apt


rebooting and reinstalling fixed the problem but using woody iso it did not detect my video card and none of the ati drivers worked

so i went back to the new debian beta installer and did a net install

gave me same problems

wont apt-get from http

it would not let me do so

i tried it over and over again ...........

same error saying something like can not locate the cd .... insert cd

The Debian installer always gave me problems. For desktop usage, I have had a lot of success using Knoppix as an installer. Simply boot up the Knoppix CD, hit ctrl+alt+F1, enter "knoppix-installer" and follow the directions. It is simple and has worked flawlessly for me on 3 machines. The main limitation is that it only installs to one partition "/", but you can create and move partitions after installing. A detailed review is here: http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php...review-knoppix

Another good option is to try the Debian-anaconda installation CDs from Progeny. ISO images are available here: http://platform.progeny.com/anaconda/ Be sure to read the errata as the software is still in alpha. However, it can work if you follow the directions in the errata. The anaconda version installs a standard Debian-Sarge with Gnome and XFree86 4.2.1. Knoppix installs a testing/unstable mix with KDE and a lot of custom packages (including Xfree86 4.3). Of course, after it is installed, you can use apt to add or remove anything you like. Good luck.