Installing and upgrading but not from the net.

["Mirabella, Mathew J" <Mathew.Mirabella@team.telstra.com>]

Hi all.  I am new to linux and debian and have a few questions on installing the distro.

i have the 7 woody (stable) installation cds along with an eighth cd which seems to have some of the non-free stuff.  i would like to get sid (unstable) or at least testing working on my box, but don't have the cds for that.  Is it true that you can only actually Install the stable distro?  btw my woody cds are the r0 version not the r1...   does this make a difference?

The issue is that the box i will be installing on has a slow internet connection, while i have a fast one via a windows box at work.  So what i want to do is download everything i need via the windows box to hard disk, maybe burn it onto cds (perhaps using isos from the net) or even just downloading all the files i need, and then to copy this stuff over to a partition on the box i want to install deb on (or burn the cds to use them instead).

So... how can i install debian and then upgrade to sid from cd or hd easily, rather than upgrading or updating direct from the net.  Can someone give me very simple and easy to follow instructions for this?

Can anyone also tell me if the apps in sage or sid are as recent as the stuff redhat etc are packaging in their distro, rh9 or mandrake etc. for example?

Thanks.

Mat.