debian installation (dselect and dpkg) woes

[Marvin Bellamy]

After watching the FTP install, I see that binary-all is needed and a 
link between stable and potato is needed.  I've always downloaded the 
packages and installed from HD for reliability reasons, but Debian's 
directory structure is a little more complicated.  Installation programs 
tend to get slowed down by connection problems that dedicated FTP 
clients already address...which is what keeps happening with my current 
install.  The Debian install won't restart after a dropped connection, 
but it at least gives you the option to continue your download.

Don Erickson wrote:

>In article <3CCD4121.3060201 at innovision.com> you write:
>
>>I don't have the CD, I FTP'd the debian CD's relevant binary 
>>subdirectories.  "...downloaded the CD..." was a really bad way for me 
>>to phrase that.  
>>
>
>I had hoped that this was the case.
>
>>could be missing something else...possibly, I need binary-all?  When I 
>>attempt to install packages, I see error messages that indicate dselect 
>>is looking in dists/potato/main rather than dists/stable/main.  
>>
>
>dists/stable/main should be symlinked to dists/potato/main.  You might
>check that.
>
>In any 
>
>>case, I thought there might be something obvious and boneheaded I was 
>>doing wrong.  I haven't put in an honest effort to resolve this I guess. 
>>Ordering the Debian CD is probably the easiest way to go.
>>
>
>I've heard of issues when downloading trees in ascii mode vs binary mode
>via ftp, there's a remote possibility that this is related.  Do you have a
>fast conection to the internet?  If so then the easiest way to to select
>an ftp install (http usually works from behind a firewall) and let it
>roll.
>
>
>Regards,
>
>-Don
>