I’m in a bit of a bind. My employer only provides me the ability to download the pre-built iso DVD images for Debian. These are actually mirrored internally on special servers which house the only software authorized for use within the company (no exceptions).
This hasn’t generally been an issue as the vast majority of packages I’ll ever need are contained on the first three dvds. The only exceptions are specific dependencies needed for building kernels and the kernel sources for pae and the real time build.
Can I suggest the notion that it would be very helpful if these could be included within the first three ISO images? There must be ways to squeeze these into those iso images. Almost everything is already there, so it makes sense to ensure those images also have enough to completely build kernel images.