should i try wood or an older version or a unstable version?
what would be my best bet to go with if i use debian?

For servers : Woody
For desktop : Sarge or Sid.
If you wan´t the latest software versions : Sid
Or you can try knoppix. (live CD, no need to write on disk, possibility to install, good hardware detection, debian based)

I used woody for desktop and worked fine. it is the most stable linux that i saw. now i'm using SID and it's great, almost perfectly stable. i had a few little problems but I solved them very easy and really with sid you'll have all software that you wish

one other question.... SID uses yaboot 1.3.11 (mac) so esentiallyt it is g5 compatable right?

either way, install woodie. most stable way i was told from people here (and tested myself) to use sarge or sid was to install a base system of woodie, then dist-upgrade to sarge or sid.

if its non mission critical i would install jsut the base woodie, then dist upgrade to sarge. its stable for the most part. it has tested software (unlike Sid which is bleeding edge, though your the gunie pig, fun for messign with im shure though, or if your really good and can work around problems) and acts as a kind of last steap proving ground before the next stable build which will include that new content.

btw, if you plan on keeping a stock kernel, and want to use nvidia drivers also and will upgrade to sarge/sid, then you want to add the nvidia driver before upgradding (because gcc will be upgradded to a version which will conflict with the older woody kernels compiled with the older gcc. so just apt-get gcc, g++ and the proper kernel headers, link them and you run the nvidia add kernel command and install the new package)

-Krause

How to change woody to sarge?

M.

just edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
Change the words "stable" to "testing"
or "woody" to "sarge". For example :

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ stable main non-free contrib

deb http://non-us.debian.org/ stable/non-US main contrib non-free

change to :

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib

deb http://non-us.debian.org/ testing/non-US main contrib non-free

or to :

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sarge main non-free contrib

deb http://non-us.debian.org/ sarge/non-US main contrib non-free

The difference is that the first will always point to a testing distro. (sarge can change to stable and another name become the testing)
and the second will always point to sarge.

after that, execute :
"apt-get update"
"apt-get dist-upgrade"

for further information read the apt-howto :

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap.../index.en.html