It's been about 3 years since I tried Debian - so I'm downloading sarge now via that jigdo thing.
Anyway - looks like a LOT of iso's - 12 of them.

Initially I'm downloading the first five - suspecting that some of them are source and aren't necessary for the install. Am I right? If so - which CD's are binary and which are source - or are they all binary?

I can't seem to find it in any of the debian.org docs I've looked at.

I'm downloading the 3/20/04 release if it matters.

Thanks for any response.

I have used the first 5 and find it has covered everything that I need or use I should say. Gnome,KDE,xfce etc all included and a really good package assortment.

I just downloaded the first 2, and that gave me enough for a decent GUI'd install with net connection, and from there, I just apt-getted the rest off of the 'net. With "Woody", I downloaded the whole set of CDs but found I really only used maybe the first 2 or 3.

WHAT?! A 12 disc distro?!

Oi vey!

I usually grab the first two ISOs if I need them. I believe the Debian packages are distributed in the order of popularity across the ISOs, so most common stuff should be on the first few.

If you've got a permanent net connection and you won't want a copy of the CDs for later, you can do a net install. I am at the moment doing a net install of Sarge on my main PC (21% as I speak) from the business card ISO. There's also a 100Mb ISO which contains Debian base (to get the system running) then it downloads everything else you need: http://gluck.debian.org/cdimage/test...86-netinst.iso

During the install, Debian prompts for sources - you tell it about all the CDs you've got, then you can also add an FTP source to the list so if you've got a network connection to the net (or PPP I believe) then it will download anything it can't find on your CDs via that.

The net install doesn't work with PPPoE.
Not with anything I tried. Which is too bad - adsl is very common.

Nope... I haven't seen a PPPoE install system - likewise there's no support for PCI ISDN cards AFAIK. Neither of which affect me luckily - I run my ADSL through a router serving my LAN.

On the same line of thought, do you have another system that can act as a router for your PC?

No - I don't have another system that can act as a NAT box.

I have two macs - but they only have one nic apiece.
My PC is my nat box for them.

I use to have a nat box but the mobo finally died - and I haven't bought another yet.