first of all, specify what you are doing to install it, exactly. it sounds like you are trying to ftp the distribution package-by-package from a distro site to install this is NOT the way to do it, there is a 99.9% chance it will get screwed up somewhere. i did it on my first install and spent 3 days fixing it(luckily i was a rather experienced and patient). I suggest if you have access to a CDR, download the ISO (http:///cdimage.debian.org) or, download the base disks, there are 7 of them i beleive, and the boot/drivers disk and run an ftp install provided you can get the NIC working during the inital base install. and provided you have fast net access. If that doesnt work, order a CD, i suggest you get the Learning Debian GNU/Linux from O'Reilly for aobut $40 includes a great book and CD. Or go to www.linuxmall.com and get a CD for $2 or something ..
and btw, symlinks are like a shortcut in win9x/NT and like an alias on a mac but much MUCH more powerful/flexible/integrated then at least a shortcut is on win9x/NT(not sure aobut mac. nate On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, David Pilz wrote: dpilz >I am about to install linux for the first time, and am having a few dpilz >problems: what are the symbolic links for? what do they do? They are not dpilz >being downloaded to my computer when I download the packages. Do I need dpilz >them? Also, the file sizes specified for the packages are relatively dpilz >small - 3 Kb, 4 Kb, etc., but when I download the packages they turn out dpilz >to be larger - 3 Mb, 4 Mb, and devel was about 150 Mb. Why is this? Any dpilz >help would be appreciated. dpilz > dpilz > dpilz >-- dpilz >Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null dpilz > ----------------------------------------[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ]-- Vice President Network Operations http://www.firetrail.com/ Firetrail Internet Services Limited http://www.aphroland.org/ Everett, WA 425-348-7336 http://www.linuxpowered.net/ Powered By: http://comedy.aphroland.org/ Debian 2.1 Linux 2.0.36 SMP http://yahoo.aphroland.org/ -----------------------------------------[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ]-- 7:10am up 147 days, 19:11, 1 user, load average: 0.72, 0.48, 0.41