This will download You can install different releases of Debian Etch to into a temporary location on your serverVE's private directory using the debootstrap command.  The command parameters are:  debootstrap --arch ARCH NAME DIRECTORY URL Specify your architecture instead of <tt>i386</tt> if you're using something other than i386/x86. For example, for AMD64/x86_64, use <tt>amd64</tt> or for ia64, use <tt>ia64</tt>.  We use VE ID of 777 for this example; surely it can be any other unused ID. === Etch (current Debian stable) ===  sudo debootstrap --arch i386 etch /vz/private/777 http://debian.osuosl.org/debian/ === Sarge (old release) ===  debootstrap sarge /vz/private/777 http://http.us.debian.org/debian === Woody (very old release) ===  debootstrap woody /vz/private/777 http://archive.debian.org/