every time on my Toshiba S2800 laptop. If I start it from a terminal I can see it says 'killed' --very helpful __{{emoticon}}__ )

This does not happen with any other linux installer on this machine (the ubuntu 8 text installer stops when trying to open the partitioner).

Are you staring it as root?

Yes.
False alarm anyway, I've discovered that most of the memory in it has shut down, leaving the original 64 mb chip.
Too little of course. The debian text installer is the only option until i get more.