Newly installed Debian "slink"

[Jose Alberto Lobo <lobo@fismat.ffn.ub.es>]

    Dear unknown colleague,

    I have just installed in my desktop Debian 2.1 from a CD
a colleague here created from the net. I have been using
Linux for nearly four years now, and have always had
Slackware --lastly Slackware 3.3, kernel 2.0.30. Due to
a major hardware breakdown I've been forced into a brand
new installation from scratch, and have decided myself for
Debian this time.

    Installation went fine, but I have a few problems which
I don't know how to address, so I request your help.

    This is the first:

    I chose the 'Scientific' set, but then decided I wanted
a few more packages, so I used 'dselect', then Access
via 'apt'. I followed the instructions, i.e., Update, Select
and Install. Then at a certain point, while files were being
transferred, apparently a local network crash happened.
After the problem was solved I restarted the process,
but saw that ALL non-installed files in the Debian ftp
site were marked  "not installed;  purge (was: purge)".

    I still marked for installation those I wished (61 files
altogether), and proceeded to the next step, Install. But,
alas, a problem came: I got the following message:

11 packages upgraded, 61 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not
upgraded.
Need to get 280k/16.7M of archives. After unpacking 29.8M will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]   (<enter>)
Get ftp://ftp.es.debian.org stable/main man-db [280k]
ERROR
ftp://ftp.es.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-i386/doc/man-db_2.3.10-69FIX.1.deb

  Incorrect MD5Sum

    Then the process hopelessly aborts...

    So the first question question is obvious:

    1) What to do now? I would definitely like to be able to
        download software, now and in the future...

    Second is simple:

    2) Are there tools or methods to search the Debian
         archive? The listing is enormous, and I don't see
          (yet) the logic of the organisation, which makes
          long and time consuming the simple task of finding
          a given package.

    Now third:

    3) Is it safe to install non-Debian packages in the
         'old' Slackware fashion (download .tgz, unpack,
         compile, install)? For example, I would like to have
         the newest version of teTeX --which I didn't find
         in the archive, and also Netscape-4.7, acroread,
         and others. Also, is it sensible to install the latest
         kernel 2.2.14? I think I need at least. some 2.2 version.

     I think I should mention at this point that I told  apt  to
remove certain packages I thought are not necessary for
my needs. Amongst them all teTeX related stuff and a
few of the many editors available --I use only emacsen.
May this have caused some of the problems described in
1) above...?

    Finally, I don't seem to understand yet Debian's startup
process, as I don't know how to avoid a direct xdm screen
at the beginning, for example. Another puzzling issue is
that xterms and console don't seem to read login profile
files when launched --I have to enforce them via 'source'.
The 'su -' command presents this feature, too...

    It's a long question list to begin with... I hope you can
give me a hand, however. Hopefully a few key indications
will suffice.

    Thanks for your kind attention. Best regards,

Alberto

    N.B.: Please note that my e-mail address is lobo@ffn.ub.es.
I'm not sure that this appears in the message's back address,
as I am now using a different computer to send this note.
I would appreciate your reply being sent to lobo@ffn.ub.es,
since this makes things easier for me. Thanks again.