Problem with dpkg and gzip

[Damon Marcella <marced@rpi.edu>]

Hello all,

I've recently decided to try the latest Debian GNU/Linux distribution that
is available at ftp.debain.org.  This is going on a completely fresh HD.
I've installed the base disks with no problem, and now I am trying to add
the various packages.

After selecting the packages I wanted to install I tried both (1) quitting out
of dselect and running dpkg from the command line, and (2) the Install
option in dselect.  Both give the same type of errors for all packages.  
Here is the output from the command line:

# dpkg --install --no-also-select /mnt/debian/binary/x11/*.deb
gzip: stdin is encrypted -- get newer version of gzip
dpkg-deb: subprocess gzip -dc returned error exit status 1
dpkg: error processing /mnt/debian/binary/x11/fvwm-1.24r-7.deb (--install):
 subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
 
 Also the --auto does not work with this version of dpkg.
 
 I looked into getting a newer version of gzip, but the only one on any
 of my drives is the latest: 1.2.4
 
  All of the Debian GNU/Linux stuff that I have was retrieved from
ftp.debian.org a few days ago.

any insight?

-damon