glad to hear it's working fine.
i think you already set up the workgroup name during the debian install, so the system did not have to prompt you again for that. also, with the vast user comunity debian packages are constantly updated and improved, so installation may be slightly different from the howtos you find on the internet.
i know the hackoramo page, but thought that the debian admin page would have been better since it covers both install and configuration
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i think apt is superb, sometimes it cannot resolve all dependencies on its own but most of the time it's no problem. also when you get to that stage, most probably you don't need that guidance that badly anymore.
have you been able to resolve the issue with your nics?