On 01/18/2011 05:39 PM, Armelius Cameron wrote: this should really be addresses to web page designers. they have gone thru web pages and *prettified* them with little concern to what they contain, other than what makes them sparkle. by adding more links in pages, they get more pages to *prettify*. they care little about convince. <snip> <snip> until some people get there heads out of their butts and put what is needed on pages and cut out all the links, 'aunt tillie' can use a torrent download, which is self checking. and yes, 'aunt tillie' can get torrent downloader for msbsos. -- peace out. tc.hago, g . **** in a free world without fences, who needs gates. ** help microsoft stamp out piracy - give linux to a friend today. ** to mess up a linux box, you need to work at it. to mess up an ms windows box, you just need to *look* at it. ** learn linux: 'Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition' http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html 'The Linux Documentation Project' http://www.tldp.org/ 'LDP HOWTO-index' http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/index.html 'HowtoForge' http://howtoforge.com/ ****

On Tue, 2011-01-18 at 18:01 +0000, g wrote: Only against changes to the content of the file being downloaded (that what you started to download, is the same as what the uploader provided). You need to *separately* check the file against another source, to be sure that you've downloaded a copy of the original, not something that's been tampered with. I don't download ISOs and install very often. So every time I do this, I have to look up instructions, and hunt around for them and the right checksum file. I agree with the original poster that, from time to time, the website does suck. I've seen the website being well written, then later changes have made it hideous to use. It keeps on changing. The website authors seem more interested in how it looks, rather than what it says. -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.

Tim: g: As much as I dislike absolute step-by-step instructions, particularly as they (usually) leave you in the lurch when you can't do one of the steps, it's not that hard to make a page that says: 1. Download the files. Here are some sources: <link to download page, with list of mirrors, a seeding link for a torrent, etc.> 2. Check your download is correct. Here are some instructions for checking on Linux or Windows or Mac, and the checksums you use to check the file with <link>. NB: I think the checksum should probably only be on the main site, so no checksums are around for supporting hacked downloads. It also provides a good metric for how many people do check the file. 3. Burn your ISO to disc, here are some instructions for different burning software <link>. Or, here are some instructions to leave the ISO on a disc you can access in some way, and boot up and install from a hard disc <link>. Or, here are some instructions for installing over a network <link>. And here is a page going into more details about the different ways you can install <link>. 4. Once installed, there's a few things you should probably configure, straight away, here's a set of brief start up instructions that explain the post-install steps <link>. 5. If you're a newcomer, you might want to read the starter's guide to using Fedora <link>. -------------------------------- Now, some of that stuff changes from release to release, so you'd had links to pages within that release's notes (checksums, specific instructions, etc.). Other things don't, so you'd have generic notes about, how to download large files from websites, how to burn the ISO on Windows software, outside of the release-specific parts of the website, for example. A decent webmaster can write that up wrapped in appropriate HTML sections so they can apply CSS to it, and re-style it every time they want to follow the latest fad, without having to re-write all the content. i.e. They can pretty it up, without lousing up the instructions that people need to see. Or, the alternative of making the pages up from a database. So that pages insert <basic install instructions> or <explicit install instructions> depending on the page needs. Which, also, makes it easier to have various different types of instruction pages, that all show exactly the same instructions. No confusion, no errors on one page that don't appear on another... I've seen it come and go, over time. But there really needs to be a one-page place to start the ball rolling, and it needs to be easy to find (both from the homepage, and by search engines *). You can link to pages with more information, for those who need more information. But for those that just need reminding of the order of steps, the first page might well do. Likewise, "further information" pages can have a 5 point quick outline of what to do at the top, and an in-depth coverage of all those steps, below, for the same reason (some people just need a prompt, others need full instructions). * Most people find pages via search engines. And that usually means straight into a page within the site, not the homepage. That only works well when the site is authored well. But can fail terribly when a site has multiple similar pages, in some way, but where only one of them is really suitable. When building a site where you keep old pages, you need to author them, right from the start, with prominent version numbers, dates, and links to the current version. Links that continue to work when the "current version" changes. e.g. On all pages, the current install guide link would always be "/install-guide", whereas links between archived old pages are "install-guide" (within the tree, not from the root). -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.

g wrote: It's late here, so pardon my terseness, but in the spirit of free software, patches are welcome. Or, as the websites team says: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Websites/ShowUs -- Todd OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Revolution, n.: In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. -- Ambrose Bierce

On 01/20/2011 11:16 AM, g wrote: You do not need to be, You can forward instructions and suggestions to webmaster AT fedoraproject.org Rahul

Armelius Cameron wrote: There are links to the CHECKSUM files and instructions (suitable for Aunt Tillie even) on the "Verify the download" page, which you noted but perhaps did not check out? The verify page also has a link for windows users. -- Todd OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect. -- George Carlin

On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 11:22 -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote: Proposal - Mockup: http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/webdesign/fedoraproject.org/verify/verify.png HTML/CSS: http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/webdesign/fedoraproject.org/verify/css-html... What do you think, Armelius? ~m

On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 11:53 -0500, Tom Horsley wrote: The instructions are also available along the sidebar on every download page: http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora (See "What will I need?" and "What Do I do?" - there's also a link to verify there as well) We thought having those instructions in the splash page in addition was important, because one of the more prominent complaints we received in our usability testing and community feedback process for the website is that it took too many clicks to get to a download. So we added a download now button to the front page, but since that goes directly to the download there isn't much opportunity to provide instructions. The splash is that opportunity. That being said, you do *not* need to complete the download before you can read the instructions. They are easily read on the splash page before you decide to download the ISO at all. Try it now. You can simply hit cancel on the download dialog that your web browser pops up, or move it to the side to read the text before hitting 'Save.' ~m

Hi Suvayu, On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 23:10 +0100, suvayu ali wrote: Point well-taken and thank you for the lovely compliment. I'm just a bit worried about adding more things-to-learn / more software-to-download / more things-to-do / more time taken to the workload of the types of users we're trying to capture to make software freedom more ubiquitous: http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/app% 20design/anaconda/comic/anaconda-comic_1.png Note this reflects a version of the installation process that is more idealized than the reality. The biggest challenge in not losing folks before they even give Fedora a chance is making it easy when they have to figure out how to get the ISO to optical media or to USB (the latter which can be really challenging.) Weighing the pros and the cons here, I'd rather have someone running Fedora and be less prone to viruses and security break-ins rather than lose them altogether when they give up trying to learn ISOs, liveusb creation, checksum checking, and GPG all in one go. Do you know what I mean? What is more harmful for them? I think the chances of them giving up because of the difficulty in the process (even without checksum verification) is far greater than the chances of the fedoraproject.org media getting tampered with. ~m

On Fri, 2011-01-21 at 13:03 -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote: If you encourage the "just click and don't think mentality," you perpetuate much that's wrong with that other OS. The trick is to explain it succinctly (i.e. *accurately*, and quickly). e.g. What's an ISO disc image file, and what do I do with it? It's an compilation of files, the files contained inside it will be placed on a disc. The ISO file will not be simply copied to the disc, as a file. You will use CD/DVD burning software that takes an ISO file, and uses it to create a disc. This disc will contain hundreds of files, and will be self-bootable. The install will start when you boot from this disc. It really needs to be a short paragraph. Exactly how to do it, is another step. If they can understand the explanation, it's much more likely that they'll be able to successfully do it. They don't have to learn it all in one go. They need brief explanations of what the options are, enough so that they can understand at least one of them. So they can pick which one to use. You can't cater for the completely clueless. If they don't know what "booting" is, they're going to have to learn that first. And, to be blunt, if they don't know that is, I don't think they know enough about computing to change OSs, nor install a new one. That's why new computers come with pre-installed OSs, for those who just want to buy a box. I don't think USB is going to get easy until all the various OSs make it easy to right-click a USB drive and "make this drive bootable," and you put files onto the drive that will be auto-booted. i.e. The first file, the one it boots, would have a common file name. The idea of a bootblock that handles that is better, but that requires bootblock writing features that aren't available to ordinary users, like dragging one or two files to a disc are. You'd really need a "download a Fedora installer for Windows" and another for Mac, that'd intelligently find the USB drive the user plugs in when prompted, so it only writes to the right drive, then puts everything on it. -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.

pe, 2011-01-21 kello 13:03 -0500, Máirín Duffy kirjoitti: OT: Could you please give me her phone number? I have a business for her. What tools were used to create this astonishing artwork? -- A feature is nothing more than a bug with seniority. -- Unknown source

On Fri, 2011-01-21 at 10:41 +1030, Tim wrote: Novice users most likely won't use those. Yeh, it was our intention to have mirror manager generate a URL for those download buttons that made the most sense given geographical location, but that got dropped due to not having the time. It would be worth bringing up again. Agreed completely, I was just pointing out that if media corruption was a concern the checksums addressed that there was another way (as ignored as it typically is) to complete that without the checksums. It doesn't replace assurances against malicious tampering for sure. ~m

On Fri, 2011-01-21 at 19:51 -0600, Matt Domsch wrote: Ooooh sweet, I didn't know that was working!! That is awesome! ~m