I am using the new Mepis distro. I have a dual boot win2k and linux. Till I get my Diamond usb wireless working with linux I want to down load patches upgrades etc. to windows. Then I can mount the win partition to get them. Can you do this?

Yeah, as long as you're able to mount your Windows partition in Linux.

how do I set this up on windows and what do i download .rpm, .dbn? Our what?

You can if the distro offers NTFS support (Windows propriatory file system) on install, otherwise you will have to have it available on some other media.

Download the pacakges built for your distribution to begin with until you can manage software.

# Guides to software management
LNAG - How do I install a program I downloaded from the Internet?
Rute Guide's software explanation
You might want to check out CheckInstall to manage source code installations/uninstallation

As I reply to this post, I am listening to music on my storage partition, with its NTFS5 filesystem, made from within XP. Mepis truely has NTFS (at least read only) support built in. It seems that its Debian with all the stuff you couldn't get from the deb repository for licence reasons. So far so good. You can mount it from the desktop with Kdiskfree - 2 mouse-clicks, and then borwse to wherever you need. Just don't write to it (not supported by anyone well yet). Mepis is Debian, so deb packages is likely best. I'll warn you, I burnt my copy iabout 6 weeks ago, and I just finished a 200+MB update when I installed it yesterday. BTW, if you have a SBLive! sound card, itl'll stop working after the update until a reboot (but if you're dual-booting, its not a big deal.lol)

APT HOWTO
Debian Package Management HOWTO Version 1.1

Actually, after posting, I was wondering why you asked this question and why we answered it. If you're not on the net, you don't need to worry about it at all. Get your card working and then get the updates. There are no updates that are necessary for a standalone machine, as far as security is concerned, as noone can remotely access the machine. Bugfixes will be a real pain as well. Remember that every updated package will have dependancies. You could have a big chain of things relying on each other to get where you need to be without breaking the system. Its a Debian distro. Don't worry about it now. Get your card working first and then apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, apt-get clean. Done. If you try to patch the system as is,you'll spend DAYS searching for what's newer (think about how you're gonna find that out - you'll have to check every version number of every package and then search the repositories for updated versions. Impossible!). Mepis uses a selection of testing/unstable sources (and you can add experimental with a few mouse-clicks). With unstable, new versions happen every few hours, so your work will be for nothing.

Fix the card first.

Guy's you are the best! I really have upgraded my knowledge here! That is what I will do. Get the modem working then update. But dont worry Ill be Bac, (too new).
Thanks All.

Just remember there's no reason you can't play with what you've got! I noticed that Mepis comes with Tuxracer installed. You gotta play it. Too much fun! I am writing this as we speak from last night's install f Mepis, so there's proof it can be a success (and you don't know the 1/2 of what it took - OS not involved). DON'T EVER INSTALL EVER, AND I MEAN EVER A DISK MANAGER THAT DOES IT ALL FOR YOU! my drive is a fujitsu with their Ontrack disk manager, which has prevented me from using it at a second drive to boot from (it screws up lilo, grub, and GAG)