[FlyMoreRockets]

My first Debian was also Slink, installed from a box of floppies onto a 486. Had to use rawrite to put the disk image onto the floppies. That box of floppies is still around here somewhere, though the 486 is long gone.

[IronBacon]

I remember the troubles using "dselect" without a stable internet connection, "apt" came quite later (with Potato or Woody, don't recall). On the other hand, I never had the need to try something else...

[asveikau]

I think apt was actually in slink. I remember the dist-upgrade to potato over a modem. It was so far ahead of the rpm based distros then.

But the installer still dropped you into dselect for a long time thereafter. Once it was installed it was smooth sailing.

[FlyMoreRockets]

The thing that most impressed me about the install was the experimental hardware detection. I had a list of all she system hardware and the installer only missed a single component. Even then, it was an alternate recommendation.