From owner-freebsd-doc Tue Feb 13 7:49:26 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from psychotic.aberrant.org (psychotic.aberrant.org [64.81.134.141]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F3D6A37B491 for ; Tue, 13 Feb 2001 07:49:23 -0800 (PST) Received: (from seth@localhost) by psychotic.aberrant.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA70203 for freebsd-doc@freebsd.org; Tue, 13 Feb 2001 10:49:22 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from seth) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 10:49:22 -0500 From: Seth To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Web page suggestion Message-ID: <20010213104922.A70178@psychotic.aberrant.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org This suggestion has probably been debated ad nauseum already, but I'd like to make it anyway on the off chance that nobody's ever heard it before :) One of the hardest things for people new to FreeBSD to do is locate the installation disks & instructions. This sounds strange to those of us who are familiar with the web site, but the images are three clicks away from the main page, and the links are embedded in stuff that the impatient would-be user won't want to read. I can't tell you the number of times I've pointed people to the freebsd.org web site and then had to hand-hold them through locating the floppies and imaging instructions. More than once, I've heard "if it's this much trouble to install, how hard is it going to be to USE?" The argument can certainly be made that FreeBSD should discourage those people who are too impatient to read the documentation, and I might agree with this. However, is there any reason NOT to have an easy bulleted list, with the appropriate links, highlighted on the main page, along with an indication of the curent release status and the projected future release date(s)? I'm not suggesting that the information isn't there already -- it is. But the release information is completely separate from the downloads, and it makes sense to me to have all that relevant information in one place, highlighted for quick navigation. Before I get flamed for speaking about something I've had little involvement in to date, please know that I have been using (and advocating) FreeBSD since 1995, and that I'm more than willing to do a site mockup (thereby investing my own time in this suggestion) if people are interested. If it's not something that should go on the main site, I can create my own & point newbies to it. Comments appreciated (but please, no flames... just tell me to go away if nobody's interested). Seth. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message