Quote Originally Posted by sincity2k
Is etch pretty reliable?...
Etch is extremely reliable. Although it's currently called "testing", Debian is known to be over conservative in this area,. And Etch is scheduled to become the new "stable" version by years end (at which time I expect I'll start advising people to go for the "new testing" version istead).

Quote Originally Posted by sincity2k
How exactly does it work??? will it download everything and then I have to burn it to a disc or what exactly? Thanks for the replies. I will always have my knoppix DVD just as I imagine you guys do also.
Net-install downloads about a 100 meg iso, a light weight Linux system that then goes on-line and installs everything else that you want from the Internet. You don't burn any full discs (you might even want to put the net-install iso on a CDRW to not waste any discs). If you want a GUI desktop I suggest that you select the desktop option durning the install, which will install Gnome. You can later apt-get install kde or any other desktop or application that you want. Of course, you can download and burn the ISO images of Debian CDs or even DVD too, but I see little reason to do that; the discs just get out of date and you are much better off using apt-get to install and update right from the Internet. The discs would be fine if you were in a position that you didn't have Internet access, but if you have high speed access I find it nicer to do the net-install. By the way, if you have dsl then be sure to have a router, I don't think that the net-install supports all of the dsl pppoe setup you would need without one.