debian Do I really need to d/load all 7 CDs ?

Or, maybe just the first 3 or 4 ?

You don't need to download all 7 cds. You only need numbers 1,6, and 7. CD's 2-5 are just various flavors of boot disks. (Can't find the website that tells exactly what they are)

btw, Debian is a very good OS.

I only downloaded the first CD and used apt-get to install the other stuff. Worked fine.

Yeah, that'd work too. Would probably be faster, because you don't have to download the extra stuff on the cd that you don't need.

If you haven't already downloaded the ISO, you should give Jigdo a try. It allows you to pick a local mirror and downloads the individual packages from there, making it faster to download, easier to update ISOs (you can download just the stuff that's changed), and less stressful for the ISO mirrors.
I just made the 3.0r1 ISO with it, and it took slightly more thought than downloading the ISO directly.

These are options I have done:

Libranet 2.0 installer.
LordSutch.com ISOLINUX mini-ISO image.

Both of these methods worked well for me. The Libranet installer immediately gives you a usable system with all the software you would need.

Look at http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/ for more options for net installation. Someone mentioned they only needed CD1 of Debian stable, that might work well, too.

I wouldn't download all 7 CDs. I'd use one of these methods to get a minimal system and then apt-get the rest. Chances are, the CDs are out of date anyways, especially if you plan to use testing/unstable--you'd just end up downloading a lot of the software over again when you do an apt-get dist-upgrade.

Jigdo would be good if you're installing at a location where you don't have a fast Internet connection (but have a fast connection for making the CDs) and need everything on CD. Or you are installing on multiple systems and don't want to stress the mirrors. But I wouldn't burn more than one CD-R/RW otherwise.

DaBigJ said:

You don't need to download all 7 cds. You only need numbers 1,6, and 7. CD's 2-5 are just various flavors of boot disks. (Can't find the website that tells exactly what they are)

btw, Debian is a very good OS.

Click to expand...

The Debian CD ISO's contain the OS and much of the software available using apt-get, and not multiple flavors of boot disk, it is only the first disk which is bootable according to the FAQ on Debian's website

In fact on Debian's website it quotes

Furthermore, in most cases it is not necessary to download all of the images for your architecture. The packages on the CDs are sorted by popularity: CD 1 contains the installation system and the most popular packages. CD 2 contains slightly less popular ones, CD 3 even less popular ones, etc. You will probably not need CD 3 and higher unless you have very special requirements. (And in case you happen to need a package later on which is not on one of the CDs you downloaded, you can always install that package directly from the Internet.)

Click to expand...