Malformed Release File

["Chris Tillman" <tillman@voicetrak.com>]

I first tried wget to retrieve the file directly. It couldn't resolve 
the domain name. Then I noticed my other machine, which was downloading 
apt-get from the same server, was getting error messages too.

I then went back to the first amchine and started base installation 
from http.us.debian.org without any problems.

So in this case, it really was a server problem. Is there some way we 
could check specifically for dns name resolution and ping-ability and 
return that as an error instead of Malformed Release file?

-- 
*------v--------- Installing Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 --------v------*
|      <http://www.debian.org/releases/woody/installmanual>      |
|   debian-imac (potato): <http://debian-imac.sourceforge.net>   |
|            Chris Tillman        tillman@voicetrak.com          |
|                   May the Source be with you                   |
*----------------------------------------------------------------*