Debian 6 net install results in no network?
 

I installed it (debian squeeze 6.0.6 i386 netinst) the machine is a dell XP desktop.
This was a write over everything to one partition so install seemed pretty quick & easy. However.
On first bootup we don't get the expected display, we get the top vertical half of the screen divided into 4 miniature debian screens and I can't get it to do anything. There's some really small text (on all 4) that might say
"Loading Linux 2.6.32 5 686"
"Loading initial ramdisk"
But, It's Dead Jim!

Reboot to recovery mode.
I tried to apt-get update
But it can't find two different mirrors. (I re-ran the complete install and tried a different mirror) still nothing. So I tried pinging things - "unknown host"

I'm not really sure where to go from here.

I had another disk so I gave that a try, it's debian 6.0.6 businesscard soooo, I ran that. Completely new installation. Exactly the same results.

~Newer~
Found this link
http://linux.koolsolutions.com/2009/...ivers-missing/
Tried the first thing suggested there;
apt-get install linux-image-2.6.29-1-686
it goes through some stuff (I'm on another computer here)
but the errors they have aren't the errors I'm getting! Mine are;
E: Unable to locate package linux-image-2.6.29-1-686
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'linux-image-2.6.29-1-686'

I guess I can try a different cd installing without internet. I just can't believe I need to. This machine had windows XP, ubuntu, puppy, and pussy all running firefox or some sort of browser without a problem. Why is debian so hard to get running? Or is it I shouldn't be using 6? I have no idea.

What model of Dell is it? I have some experience loading Debian on Dells. Some of the XP-era machines have trouble due to the graphics chips in them. Sometimes updating the BIOS can fix that.

You might be able to get better error info if you edit your GRUB command line and remove "quiet" or "splash" from the boot command.

model DHM
serial GRD0K11

I edited grub removing the "quite"

Also noticed in the first part of grub.cfg 00_header
it lists
function load_video{
insmod vbe
insmod vga
insmod video_bochs
insmod video_cirrus
}
that, (the display in grub) works just fine.
Still nothing...
I did try switching in bios, the primary video controller from AGP to auto but that made no difference.
Also in bios switched from network interface controller = on
to
network interface controller = on w/mba
tried pinging - same result