Booting my laptop

["Ross Burton" <ross.burton@mail.com>]

Hi,

I am having great trouble booting Debian on my laptop for various reasons
and basically have one option left that I can see: build a basedebs.tgz file
for Debian Testing and put in on the Windows partition, and then tell a
woody boot floppy to install the base system from that tarball.

However, I've asked in #debian, #debian-boot and debian-user and nobody
knows how I can create this file.  The machines around the laptop have a
fairly fast net connection (~35 KB/s, nothing special but better than a
modem!) so I can download large-ish files like the base of Woody.  Its
downloading entire CD images which are not a good idea (shared net
connection) which is why I haven't just downloaded an entire image of Woody.

So, if anyone here can tell me how to generate the basedebs.tgz file (it
will have to be done RedHat, btw) so that I can get debian onto my new
laptop, I can then dist-upgrade using my Sid CDs and finally have a system
to read my email with over Christmas...  :)

Many thanks for any help,
Ross Burton