Debian wheezy is awesome :)

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

^good stuff

[mikodo]

Debian 7 non-free firmware

Check out the message box:

If any of the hardware in your system requires non-free firmware to be loaded with the device driver...

I downloaded the tarballs of common firmware packages and unpacked them onto a USB stick. Plug in the USB stick - non free firmware packages, and boot up Debian 7 Net-Install CD. Going through the install process, Debian 7 installer will access the USB stick for the missing non free firmware - needed for your hardware.

Was able to easily wireless net install Debian 7 on my Toshiba Satellite C655 notebook

Thanks.

From the Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide in the chapter "Using the Debian Installer" is this page "Loading Missing Mirmware" suggests what you did.

;p

[mips]

Debian is nice for when you want a solid/stable box and not worried about getting the latest software. If however you wan't newer packages debian is not so accommodating. Great distro though.

[BBQdave]

Debian is nice for when you want a solid/stable box and not worried about getting the latest software. If however you wan't newer packages debian is not so accommodating. Great distro though.

Backports help, but your right, Debian Stable is more focused on hardening a system then the latest greatest applications

[screaminj3sus]

Does debian now have out-of-the-box wifi support? Its omission in the previous release was a huge turn-off for me.

Yes, and if your wifi needs non-free firmware, you can download the non-free firmware to a USB stick and plug it in during install, and then the debian installer will automatically detect and use the appropriate firmware if needed. http://wiki.debian.org/Firmware#Firm...e_installation

The debian installer had no problem using and connecting with my wifi.

[screaminj3sus]

Debian is nice for when you want a solid/stable box and not worried about getting the latest software. If however you wan't newer packages debian is not so accommodating. Great distro though.

I used to always like the latest software, but with the near-total lack of regression testing in most FOSS software, I now kind of enjoy things being out of date, at least the bugs are predictable and I won't get new ones introduced during updates.

[mips]

I used to always like the latest software, but with the near-total lack of regression testing in most FOSS software, I now kind of enjoy things being out of date, at least the bugs are predictable and I won't get new ones introduced during updates.

Agreed. At the end of the day people need to decide which they prefer.

I could probably run wheezy on my laptop as I only have a certain set of apps installed on it and I rarely update it.

[mikodo]

Agreed. At the end of the day people need to decide which they prefer.

I think I am going to start running both Debian "Stable" with some select back-ports apps and Debian "Testing" for a while to decide which is good for me. If for nothing else, to do some testing for Debian.

Choice is good.

;p

[Dlambert]

Just my personal opinion here, but to willingly use outdated software is just something I cannot do. I'm a manjaro/Arch man.

[mips]

Just my personal opinion here, but to willingly use outdated software is just something I cannot do. I'm a manjaro/Arch man.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you. I really tried using debian but I always longed for the newer packages. I mean they are still on xfce 4.8. I ran crunchbang xfce for a while and needed a few newer packages and I went the whole apt-pinning route which just ended in disaster.

I'll stick to manjaro/arch for now.