Just did an awesome install of Debian etch onto Maggie's laptop, which had stopped having working wifi in windows for unknown reasons. Everything worked great in the installer and the resulting desktop felt very nice for a regular user, the only things I had to add were madwifi (non-free..) and network-manager. It was probably my most painless and happy Debian installation ever.

(Details on the page for phoenix, and in the installation report linked to from there.)