Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 12:30:41 +1000 From: Andrew Kenneth Milton <akm@mail.theinternet.com.au> To: Josh Paetzel <jpaetzel@hutchtel.net> Cc: Seth <seth@psychotic.aberrant.org>, Kent Stewart <kstewart@urx.com>, mij@osdn.com, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Web page suggestion Message-ID: <20010214123040.O39738@zeus.theinternet.com.au> In-Reply-To: <00a201c09628$74fd7600$6100000a@vladsempire.net>; from Josh Paetzel on Tue, Feb 13, 2001 at 07:49:35PM -0600 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> <00a201c09628$74fd7600$6100000a@vladsempire.net>
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+-------[ Josh Paetzel ]---------------------- | | <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 you severely underestimate the level of the people trying to do this. Generally they're looking for alternatives, they have scratch box or partition and they're trying out 3 or 4 flavours of Linux, and they want to throw FreeBSD into the mix. Or they're trying out something other than Linux because they're starting to hear more and more press about FreeBSD. They don't want to wade through hundreds of pages of doco to find where the software is. They want to download, and have a go themselves first before reading the doco. At this point, some will give up if it doesn't go to plan, some will RTFH, some will ask for help on the mailling lists or on the various irc channels that are around. | 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. It doesn't have a steep learning curve for those who are already familiar with UNIX type systems. Complete novices should still be able to install the system (or find it to download it and install it), even if they don't know what to do with it once they've done so. | 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. But we want it to be right? I mean we're not a group of elitists who think UNIX shouldn't be available to everyone are we? Are we? If people want to install something to have a play, or to see what they can do, we shouldn't be discouraging curiosity, or creativity. From a sheer advocacy point of view, I would think having direct links on the front page to download the CD and floppy images can only be a good thing. In fact I would put a Getting FreeBSD section on the main page, not just in the sidebar (between Easy to Install and FreeBSD is free, is where I'd put it d8). Like it or not the customer base is growing into a new arena, and we (as a community), should be taking steps to embrace the new populous, even if they have goofy requests, or don't always RTF[HM]. They have been cultured very hard by big marketing companies that computers aren't scary things, and that computers don't have to be hard to use or operate. -- Totally Holistic Enterprises Internet| P:+61 7 3870 0066 | Andrew Milton The Internet (Aust) Pty Ltd | F:+61 7 3870 4477 | ACN: 082 081 472 ABN: 83 082 081 472 | M:+61 416 022 411 | Carpe Daemon PO Box 837 Indooroopilly QLD 4068 |akm@theinternet.com.au| To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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