The reason I can't use "stable" is the kernel revision is too old to support RAID controllers, so I'd have to use a 3rd party installer with a more recent kernel - not quite the definition of "stable". Actually, that's what I had started to do when I ran into the RAID controller init problem and I turned to Sarge for a fix, bit it had the same problem.

Fortunately this CD-ROM screw-up has been fixed in the binary i386-1 dated 3-14-05 and the install went fine this morning.

In this case I'm doing two machines that are supposed to be identical, but they'll be built up to 2 months apart, so the CD install method is my preference.