[TAG] Debian Installation

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Martin Hooper (martinjh at blueyonder.co.uk):

> Talking of which do you need both of the DVD ISO's to install Debian??

No, you don't.

You can install a reasonable Debian system using CD#1 or DVD#1 only --
or the business card image or netinst image plus Internet access.

Additional disks just have packages and catalogues of more software. 
Over here in cheap-bandwidth land (USA and Canada), it's most common to 
use netinst + Internet, on grounds that any Linux CD image you burn and
use was already obsolete on release day, you're going to replace the
contents from Internet updates anyway, and so you might as well use as
small a CD as possible.  (This logic applies much more on the
quicker-moving Testing and Unstable branch than in the slow lane that is
Debian Stable.)

On the other hand, if you expect to do off-Net installs, that might be a
sufficient reason to download all 17 or whatever Official Debian CD ISOs.
(I personally never do.)

FYI:  The ncurses installer on Ubuntu's "Alternate Disk" (the _only_
Ubuntu installer prior to Dapper Drake) is taken directly from Debian, 
altering it pretty much just to supply default answers to some questions
that would otherwise be asked.  As Mark Pilgrim puts it, "Ubuntu is an
ancient African word for 'can't install Debian'."