Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 19:49:35 -0600 From: "Josh Paetzel" <jpaetzel@hutchtel.net> To: "Seth" <seth@psychotic.aberrant.org>, "Kent Stewart" <kstewart@urx.com> Cc: <mij@osdn.com>, <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Web page suggestion Message-ID: <00a201c09628$74fd7600$6100000a@vladsempire.net> References: <20010213104922.A70178@psychotic.aberrant.org> <20010213125007.B375@guinness.osdn.com> <3A898E22.39A43C02@urx.com> <20010213145515.B1203@guinness.osdn.com> <3A89AB42.B5F0E207@urx.com> <20010213171035.B70575@psychotic.aberrant.org>
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Seth" <seth@psychotic.aberrant.org> To: "Kent Stewart" <kstewart@urx.com> Cc: <mij@osdn.com>; <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG> Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 4:10 PM Subject: Re: Web page suggestion > What I see happening is this: people come to the website, but find there's > no one link that tells them what to get and how to get it. There are plenty > of places that explain both of these things, but they're in different parts > of the site. What I'm proposing is to bring them together, so that an > impatient prospective user can see, at a glance, what the latest version is > (IMHO, this should be on the main page as well), find out where to purchase > a copy, download the tools necessary to install over a network or burn > an install ISO, and find the necessary documentation to guide him/her > through the process. Again, all of this is available today -- but it > requires wading through the site to find it, and some time on the user's > part to find all of it. Whether or not we want users who won't take > the time to hunt for the information notwithstanding, we should make > it as simple as possible to find all the information on "what, where, > and how". > > Don't change the site or its contents; just consolidate some of the links > on another page that's highlighted from the main page. Give me a few days > to come up with an example, but I'll beg your forgiveness in advance for > my bad HTML. > > Seth. > > <rant> I don't think that we need to encourage users that don't want to "wade" through the three links on the website to get to the installation instructions. I think someone who is going to have a good experience with FBSD is someone who will read the entire handbook a couple of times before trying an install. Someone who wants to be able to figure things out for themselves. FreeBSD has a steep learning curve, and we might as well let people know that right away. I installed FreeBSD in 1996, and I didn't have a clue about unix. I didn't know anything. It took me almost a year to be able to do anything with it at all. I don't think that it is fair to people to give them the impression that FreeBSD is super user friendly. (By that I mean, you don't need to know anything to use it. Just point and click, baby.) There is windows and various linux distros for that. Josh </rant> > History truncated a bit.... > On Tue, Feb 13, 2001 at 01:46:42PM -0800, Kent Stewart wrote: > > > > > > Jim Mock wrote: > > > > > > On Tue, 13 Feb 2001 at 11:42:26 -0800, Kent Stewart wrote: > > > > Jim Mock wrote: > > > > > to click the very easily labeled links, they're surely not going to > > > > > bother reading any of the install docs and will have an installation > > > > > experience similar to trying to ram their head through a brick wall. > > > > > > > > Part of the problem is that when they get to the "Handbook Chapter on > > > > Obtaining FreeBSD", they are presented with Appendix A. To a newbie, > > > > Appendix A is a series of TLA's that are completely giberish until > > > > they have been using FreeBSD for a while. There isn't a chapter on > > > > obtaining FreeBSD and there also aren't any instructions. Using FTP to > > > > download an iso or the bin files would be a section by itself. The > > > > closest I have seen is Dan's web page at > > > > http://www.freebsddiary.org/read.html. I don't think a newbie can use > > > > CVS or CTM to install FreeBSD. So, you have a series of choices that > > > > don't make any sense and more than half of them don't apply. > > > > > > I think you're talking about a whole different situation here. I'm > > > talking about if you go to http://www.FreeBSD.org/ and look under the > > > "Easy to install" header, you'll see a link that says "these > > > directions". That takes you to the install chapter of the handbook, > > > which then takes you to the floppy download and creation. > > > > > > I'm guessing you're talking about the "Getting FreeBSD" link under > > > "Software" on the bar on the left side of the site. This should also > > > point to the handbook's install chapter which explains getting the > > > floppies. If no one disagrees, I'll change it to do so. > > > > Yes, that is the link I was talking about and the one I think people > > are getting lost on. > > > > Kent > > > > > > > > - jim > > > > > > -- > > > jim mock <mij@osdn.com> O|S|D|N open source development network > > > http://soupnazi.org/ http://osdn.com/ | jim@FreeBSD.org > > > > -- > > Kent Stewart > > Richland, WA > > > > mailto:kbstew99@hotmail.com > > http://kstewart.urx.com/kstewart/index.html > > FreeBSD News http://daily.daemonnews.org/ > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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