Why not install Sarge with FAI and then upgrade? That would probably be
a lot smoother.
Probably. However, I don't have the necessary *.deb's in my local Debian
repository. Also I guess that this would then not be a 100% *F*ully
*a*utomated *i*nstallation. And to get it 100% FAI, I'd have to invest an
equal amount of time as I had to invest now.
In the days of Woody I always used a Woody FAI server to install Sarge machines.
All I did was to switch the /etc/apt/sources.list midway through the
installation, via fcopy in the updatebase hook script. That way you have
DEBIAN_STABLE and DEBIAN_TESTING classes, to select your Debian flavour per
machine. This works beautifully and is fully automatic. The only downside is
that the installation takes a minute or two extra to upgrade the base Woody packages.
Ludwig