I just installed Debian 3.1 on my PC. I downloaded and burned the netinst CD because I really don't want to burn a ton of CDs. I would like to do a net install, but none of the mirrors I select work. I'm pretty sure it's a driver problem with my NIC. It's a Realtek 8139 and I think I'm using the 8139too driver at the moment. Is there a way to get a better driver and install it from a floppy? If so, how? I'm a first timer here and don't know too much about the shell yet..

Thanks, anybody who can help!

I don't think it's the driver. Could you post /etc/network/interfaces?

Permission Denied.

I'm logged in as root right now, so shouldn't it show it to me?

Okay, I can ping the other computers in my LAN and I also tried 66.102.7.99 (Google?). I got a ping time of around 4 for the LAN and 104 for Google, which is usual for my DSL. But when I run apt-setup, it still gives me errors when I try to connect to a mirror.

I agree that it's probably not my NIC now, but what else? I'll try to post the error message I receive ASAP.

Permission Denied is not a good sign. It should show as root. Are you still in the install program? Did you switch to another terminal?

i've shut the system down manually and with the shutdown command, but it still says permission denied. i just type "etc/network/interfaces/", right?

Okay, I've been learning more shell stuff. I used the "more" command:

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.102
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1
# dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed
dns-search wake.net

The error message I'm getting in apt-setup (after selecting HTTP as my source, United States as my country, ftp.us.debian.org as my mirror, and nothing as my proxy) is:

Failed to access the Debian archive

While trying to access the debian archive using the information you provided, the Debian package management tool, apt, returned the following error. The questions will be asked again.

Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dist...86/Packages.gz Tempory failure resolving 'ftp.us.debian.org' Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dist...y-i386/Release Tempory failure resolving 'ftp.us.debian.org' W: Couldn't stat source package list http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stable_main_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory) W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I tried running apt-get update, but it still gives the same error. What gives?

I hate to triple post, but I have an update. Turns out that when installing I left the DNS field blank because I didn't know my ISP's DNS IPs. I manually edited /etc/hosts to add my mirror (a different one since ftp.us.debian.org wasnt returning my ping).

I found and edited the resolv.conf file to add my DNS servers. Everything is working fine now! I love Linux! We couldn't even get the NIC to work in Win95, haha.