I want to show you how you can install the distro Debian-Etch in the network installation version.
This installation is for a Server, then we going to make a minium installation, but operating to install all our systems.
This is installed with a CD(100 MB ocupation), and a good Wide Band connection.
You can download the CD ISO from the official Debian page, here.

Instalación

First of all, the details of the hardware:

• Micro: Pentium III a 667 MHz
• RAM: 384 MB
• Red: Realtek 8139 a 10/100 Mbps.
• HD: 20GB IDE
• SO: Debian-4.0 (Etch) Netinst

Boot from the CD the machine to a ethernet connected. The installation consists in a few steps and, depends of the connection speed, a long time to download and intalling the basic packages:

1. Name: elite. Domain: lebrijo.com.
2. Distribute the partitions in the Hard disc. The example is a web server, then I made this ditribution:
   

   hda1	5.9 GB	ext3	/
   hda2	784 MB	swap	**
   hda3	512 MB	ext3	/var/log
   hda4	12.9 GB	ext3	/var/www

3. Fill root password (you know, secure password). And create a non-administrator user.
4. Add download servers near your town as possible (I am livin in Spain): ftp.rediris.es,es.debian.org.
5. Install GRUB as boot manager.

To retur the initial configuration, type in the bash: base-config.

Tunning our installation

Upgrade the software lists:
elite:/etc/apt# apt-get update
Des:1 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main Packages [413kB]
Des:2 ftp://ftp.es.debian.org stable/main Packages [4535kB]
Des:3 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main Release [110B]
Obj http://security.debian.org stable/updates/contrib Packages
Des:4 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/contrib Release [113B]
Des:5 ftp://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Packages [4535kB]
Des:6 ftp://ftp.es.debian.org stable/main Release [95B]
Des:7 ftp://ftp.es.debian.org stable/main Sources [1322kB]
Des:8 ftp://ftp.es.debian.org stable/main Release [97B]
Des:9 ftp://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Release [95B]
Des:10 ftp://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Sources [1322kB]
Des:11 ftp://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Release [97B]
Descargados 12,1MB en 5m51s (34,5kB/s)
Leyendo lista de paquetes... Hecho
Previous installation is minium, then I will installa some packages needed for the installation an administration of future systems an components:

• SSH: Secure terminal server for remote server administration.
• zip/unzip: usualli compressors.

apt-get install openssh-server
apt-get install zip unzip

Language configuration

A dificult that I found in this Debian version (etch), and you can find, is the un configuration of the language enviroment variables. I have solved as follow.

• Declare in  /etc/enviroment the variables:

LC_ALL=es_ES@euro
LANG= es_ES@euro
LANGUAGE=es_ES@euro
LC_TYPE=es_ES@euro

• After reconfigure locales setting the charset: es_ES@euro ISO-8859-15:

# dpkg-reconfigure locales

Network basic configuration

In four lines, the netsor configuration in Debian is:

• Configure eth0 in /etc/network/interfaces:

auto eth0
        iface eth0 inet static
                address 192.168.0.2
                netmask 255.255.255.0
                broadcast 192.168.0.255
                network 192.168.0.0
                gateway 192.168.0.1

• DNS resolution config file in /etc/resolv.conf. 192.168.0.1 is dns server in our example:

nameserver 192.168.0.1;