At home, running my dad's business copy of Windows 2000 on my Dell Inspiron 3800, I accessed the Debian website to learn if I could download the Debian operating system and install it on my own.

According to the site, I could. The Debian website recommended, however, that I do not proceed as I regularly would when I download, because the files I needed were so large that it might be difficult to sustain an error-free connection for long enough to acquire them.

Instead, the Debian website suggested that I first install something called JigDo--from "Jigsaw Download"--, which would be able to download my files in little chunks, and then put them all back together into one big file when it was done.

I decided that this was a prudent course of action.