Thanks to both Dirk and Paul for suggestions. Afraid I forgot to mention that my source of
"inspiration" was the rattle page
http://datamining.togaware.com/survivor/Install_GNU_Linux.html
where the implication (am I reading incorrectly?) is that Ubuntu and Debian would both
"work". Truthfully, it does not surprise me at all that they don't. I was playing devil's
advocate and taking things at face value.
Also note that my errors were generated in debian stable. I thought of using testing, but
figure the people I advise (in government) will not use a rapidly changing version. It's a
stretch to get them off that other OS. I'll try Karmic, which has been stated to "work".
JN