@davidrevoy I set up a Debian 12 LXQT VM, to see how delightfully boring and bug free the experience would be. As long as I didn't choose the main package mirror of deb.debian.org - which was in the middle of getting a serious pounding - then the install was perfect.
Tip: if the installer hangs accessing a bogged down pkg server, hit CTRL+ALT+F2, then at the prompt, determine the PID of the wget process with "ps", then "kill [that_pid]". Return to the GUI installer: CTRL+ALT+F7.
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