from the Debian web page decided to download "images of CDs" then make a CD on my desktop and instal from CD to laptop.

What is the difference (if any) between (A) downloading programs and data to a CD and installing from the CD to the laptop and (B) downloading "images" to the desktop and making a CD with the images? How are the "images" gonna help me?

I will be using BitTorrent for the download, so followed the Debian links to download till I got an i386 page with a list of files, headed by "Parent Directory." Under "parent directory" the first 4 files (when I double click on their names, which are MDSSUMS, MDSSUMS-signs, SHA1SUMS and SHA1SUMS-signs) just seem to be text, a row of hex numbers, each opposite the name of a file, mostly CD files. I guess I could COPY and PASTE each one but they don't seem to be otherwise downloadable.

Then there are 21 files in a series from 1 to 21, named as follows with only the number changing: debian-40r0-i386-CD-1-iso. These can be downloaded, a right-click on each of them shows a download command window.

After the 21st CD file, follow four more files, each prefixed with:
debian-40r0-i386, ending respectively with: businesscard.iso, kde-CD-1.iso, netinst.iso and kfce-CD-1.iso.

Seems like any of the files with "CD" in the filename should be easy to download by right-clicking and checking the boxes but what about the first four and the "businesscard" and "netinst.iso?"

Are there any files in that list that don't have to be downloaded?

Eternal gratitude to any who can shed a light on this.

Michael

Will you be connected to the internet during install? If so you would want the netinst.iso with this it boots then uses the files on the install disk to do a basic install then gets the rest of the packages from the internet. The kde-CD will install from a stand alone non-networked machine with the KDE desktop environment, kfce-CD gives you kfce the regular install cd gives you Gnome as the default. One thing is for sure unless you will never be connected to the internet then you don't really need all 21 disks these contain all the software packages in the entire Debian archive at most you probably only need the first 2 or 3 with the most popular packages being on the first then it goes in order of popularity for the subsequent disks the least popular being on the last disk.

Stephen, I won't be connected to the net during the instal.

Here is the plan as first envisaged in my primitive newbie brain: I would find an "instal.exe" file on the internet, maybe compressed, maybe not, and I would download the little sucker to my hard drive, then burn it to a CD. Then I would take the CD and insert same into my laptop (whose only internet connection is dial-up and/or wireless,) hit "My Computer" then open "D," find the downloaded program on D (i.e., on the CD I had just inserted in the laptop,) double-click "D" which would open the "D" drive, and find the downloaded program burned onto the disk in the "D" drive. Then I would double-click the program icon to run it, and the program ("instal.exe") running, would install debian for me on my laptop.

Now if I understand you correctly, I don't need the MDSSUMS and SHA1SSUMS programs and I could just start by downloading the first three or four CD programs, CD-1, CD-2, etc. which can be burned to disk in my desktop computer and the disks inserted into the laptop and run from there to effect installation on the laptop.

As for the other programs:>

netinst.iso is no good to me because I'm not installing directly from the net;

kde.CD-1.iso I will need if I want a KDE desktop;

and "businesscard" I will figure out for myself after I make my first installation.

I think I know what I need to know now and I thank you for your kind assistance.

Michael

xfce-CD-1-iso will give me a kfce desktop

you obivously have no idea how to install linux.
First of all you boot from the cd and it runs the installer, you don't install from within windows, I would suggest you google for tutorials to install debian

The MD5 SUM & SHA1 SUM are the output of a mathematical algorithm that was run against the original ISO file, when you download via http or ftp server you should run the algorithms with appropriate utilities and compare the output of your downloaded ISO against the sums posted at the download mirror to make sure your ISO is exactly like the original. If the output is different, your ISO that you downloaded has errors and is no good.
When you download a torrent, the torrent client (software) will run the algorithms and do the comparison for you, if after the torrent client says it completed successfully and you have an ISO on your hard drive, means it passed and is good.
An .exe file is an executable for Microsoft OS, Linux is an OS also. It would make no sense to install an operating system that can be used in an operating system. You can run them side by side and/or together in a virtual environment. But you do not install Linux from within a Microsoft OS. Have you ever used Linux to install Windows?.

Then you will need the install CD/DVDs to get the OS onto your machine.

Ok so here I can see that you have never really installed a Linux system before then. The basic procedure is you get the *.iso images then you use a burning program using that programs burn disk image option (it is named differently in most programs) you burn the individual .iso to disk so that when opened in a file browser you see a bunch of files not the file.iso that you were burning. These disk that you would have burnt have some in there that are called bootable installers usually the first disk that you put into the CD/DVD rom and with the option to boot from CD set in your BIOS you boot from to install the OS. Now when installing you need free space on your hard drive if your laptop is setup like most windows machine then you would have one big partition on it containing your install of it.

You need to do what is called re-partitioning this shrinks the space used by windows on the hard drive then you end up with space left over that is unused so you can install linux into that. When installing you get the option to do partitioning of the unused free space these partitions you need to create contain the files that will be installed to give you an operating system you can use. The bare minimum of partitions need are a /swap and a / (main partition roughly equal to C you would need to this manually or you can choose the automatic partitioning by the installer this creates many more partitions. Once past this step the OS installs asking you for the other disks if necessary then it puts a boot loader into the MBR (master boot record) to give you the choice of which OS to boot.


Now if all this seems a little much then you might want to look into what is called colinux this is a .exe that will install inside windows or getting VMWare which allows you to run different linux distributions as virtual machines this way you could try many different linux distributions at once each in its own VM.


Those are not programs but the result of those respective programs having been run on the files that are contained on the disks you would have burned, they allow you to verify that the files have not been changed an example of what you seen below.
Correct
Yes.

I believe that one is for the mini CD format that most drives will accept.

I'm not quite sure about that but ask more questions if you get stuck and as always backup any important data that is on your machine before installing any new OS things can and do go wrong.