A video by The Linux Cast on the debian website and how it needs to be more user friendly.
A video by The Linux Cast on the debian website and how it needs to be more user friendly.
Today I talk about Debian's 'improvements' to their website and why they're still not good enough. 👇 PULL IT DOWN FOR THE GOOD STUFF 👇 Patreon - https://patreon.com/thelinuxcast Paypal - https://paypal.me/thelinuxcast Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCylGUf9BvQooEFjgdNudoQg/join Ko-fi - ...
TLDW from ChatGPT:
The video is a critique of the Debian Linux distribution's website and its user experience, primarily focusing on the difficulties in finding and downloading the appropriate ISO images. The presenter praises Debian's stability and community but criticizes the website's design, stating that it's not user-friendly, especially for new Linux users. The video highlights how the website layout, multiple clicks, and confusing file tree structure can make it challenging to locate the desired ISO images, particularly for the live installer versions. The presenter suggests that while improvements have been made, the ISO download process can still be convoluted and feels like the distribution is not encouraging new users. The overall message conveys a desire for Debian to make its ISOs more easily accessible and user-friendly.
Hot take but Linux developers from all corners of the ecosystem need to take a few classes on modern UX designs when making applications for the masses...
I don't think that is a hot take at all. Many popular Linux tools in a way that feels like it was easy to implement, but not necessarily easy to use. This makes sense when you realize that many of the projects started as labors of love by developers, not UI/UX designers. Those folks work for money, and don't spend their weekends designing imagery layouts for software that doesn't exist just for fun. I think the only way this hole is going to be dug out is if universities start focusing more on cross-training and software engineering/development degrees instead of computer science degrees. If the next generation can make something useable, then people will use it. Once people use it, the money can flow, and professional designers can be hired.
I remember reading a comment on youtube on another video which mentioned that the download page is an IQ test to determine if a user is worthy of using Debian.
The downloader page has improved after the release of bookworm
But seriously, the website does need a revamp.
Look at the linux mint website, it is so clean, modern and easy to use.
It is definitely better since Bookworm, but it's still not great.
The default installation .iso is a netinstall that uses Debian's creaky old installer that looks like a text-based RPG from the 1980s when compared to a modern GUI Linux installer.
The live images, which are the best for new users because they do use a modern and user-friendly installer (Calamares) and allow pre-selection of the desktop environment, are still hidden away by needing to click through two more web pages to get to the list of isos, without any explanation of the different DEs or recommendations for new users.
It's like they thought to themselves "we need to make it easier for new users, but we don't want to make it too easy".
They’re spot on. I had this thought last week while trying to find an ISO. It’s like it’s a state secret or something. 😆
Fedora, OpenSuse, Arch, Gentoo, Kali, and Armbian all make it easy to find an ISO or image to get started. The free RHEL downloads are the only thing more hidden then Debian downloads.
There's a big fat "download" button right in the front page of debian.org that takes you right to the network install ISO. That's all you need.
Typical clickbaity thumbnail.
Yes. I agree.
Debian is Debian. Debian doesn't need to be more anything. That's especially true when there's plenty of distros that are geared towards newer users that are at their core, Debian. Also, some of us don't like having everything simple but are still too lazy for Gentoo or even Arch, and if the iso, the website, old information, or whatever is a problem then probably Debian is a pain in the ass for that user as well.
Didn't watch, but did try to install Debian fairly recently. And everything in the TLDW is true. The Debian funnel is verbose, confusing, dated-looking, jumping straight into tech babble like "burning ISO" and vague mentions of 3rd-party tools, as if everyone understood what all this means or how to do it. Let's be serious, this is just not going to work for non-techie normies, and the maintainers must be deluded if they think otherwise. There needs to be a 1-2-3 walk-thru with big friendly buttons and all the software included to get a working bootable USB stick. Last I checked, even shady Fedora ticked these boxes. Debian is supposedly the flagship FOSS distro. It is behind the times and needs to catch up.
I agree that the website needs some work but I highly disagree that it should be simplified and dummed down for beginners, there are enough great Distros for beginners and Debian isn't really one of them so why should they brand their website like it?
There are plenty of friendlier distors out there that have novice users in mind and help them learn the basics. Debian is the distro you choose because you have a specific goal in mind, could be a server, a dev machine, or to build your own distro, but not as 'my-first-install.'
Everyone is saying this, but personally I do not get the logic. Yes, Debian-alike distros are easy-peasy to install and use these days. So why not Debian too?! Just make the installation easy and get the default settings right (ordinary users do not change defaults) and then everyone can profit from the flagship FOSS distro that Debian is. Literally nobody is going to lose out, and we would all gain from having a proper FOSS distro that is widely used.
As someone who recently created pivoted to Debian (for 12.0) from Windows , the website is quite the headache. I consider myself tech-literate, and have been around the internet long enough where RTFM was a rite of passage, but they really are asking a lot given how many different directions the manual went. I put about 20 minutes into it along with 10-15 minutes reading up on things that were not well explained and then just YOLO'd it.
Also if 98% of people are installing via a flash drive and 2% are doing CD Rom installs, then cater towards the 98% in your instructions. Not only is the CD ROM examples more prominent, but they also end up leading to downloading the same .iso IIRC. Not saying to do away w/ the catering to obsolete technology, but maybe shift the conversation towards terminology and wording that end users can instantly identify with.
It really is an example of someone updating an existing process repeatedly instead of taking a step back and seeing how things have changed over time. I suppose that's the active theme for the entire website. The website is frustrating in that aspect. Speaking from experience, I'd venture that the majority of the traffic that is received from newbies following a YT tutorial where someone spells out where to go and what to click. Looking at the referenced video, it appears that have started to slowly make changes but there's still work to be done.
Reading this thread though, I can see how the web dev team came to their conclusion. A solid portion of this thread are people lauding a crap website like alumni who are extolling the virtues of hazing... "it was hard for me, it should be hard for everyone" or "There should be a bit of effort required to keep out the riff raff" etc.
THANK YOU for validating my thoughts on their instructions for installing via a USB or CD. I was so confused as to why it was so prominently featured that way, I thought I was losing my mind.
I always thought it was the way it is so that you can still browse it through a text-based browser. If that's true, is there still room for improving it's ease of use?
His arguments are mostly about links to the ISO you are most likely going to want being buried down the page, or after attention drawing elements on the page or through multiple clicks through pages that suffer from these two problems. None of his criticisms are about it being mostly text based or the styling at all. So non of the improvements he suggest will affect text based browsers. So yeah, looks like there is a lot of room for improvement even if text based browsers are the primary focus.
Hmm yeah I can see that point, there is room for optimization.
It's mostly the layout that's annoying, not the web 1.0 look. (That's actually a breath of fresh air.)
The webaite could be nicer, but I wouldn't call that a big problem. Plain debian is mostly used for webservers or by users with at least some linux experience. These won't struggle that much with clicking the right link on the website.
I prefer the Debian website over most other distro's modern look. It's simple, like Debian.
I wouldnt call it simple and I definitely see issues with the UX from a actual usability standpoint but I don't think it has to be modernized or should be simplified for beginners, that's not the goal of Debian!
It would have been less effort to submit patches to clean up the website than it took to make a video whining about it
Maybe, but someone complaining about something doesn't mean the person can fix it
Why does every distro HAVE to be "user-friendly" and bow down to the lowest common denominator? Debian is kinda known for being a bare bones OS designed for you to dig in and fuck around with. You want user friendly, there's Mint and Ubuntu. I have no problems navigating their website, but then again I grew up in the web 1.0 world and I'm used to it.
I'm annoyed when there are many differents isos.
What about instead of bitching at Debian's website they don't bitch about how useless is the Gnome desktop without icons and the activities view / lack of a proper dock/menu? You know real issues in Linux usability :D
I'm glad that I'm not alone being absolute lost in gnome
Its not about being lost, its about their tendency to simply say that computing is broken like they're doing here https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2023/07/26/rethinking-window-management and I commented here https://lemmy.world/comment/2064948 . It is also about the fact that I did a very lengthy and well researched comment at their blog showing how some of their assumptions were wrong and they just deleted it.
If you can't figure out something as simple as how to navigate their website, you probably shouldn't be using Debian as a distro anyway.
Bro this is useless gatekeeping.
Linux users: "why isn't Linux desktop more widely used? It's super easy now! Even a casual user will have no trouble!"
Also Linux users: "unless you can complete this maze, you're not worthy of running Linux"
My point was that there’s way easier versions of Linux to use than Debian. Using Debian has a learning curve associated with it that’s more difficult than simply using their website.
Naive Linux users and gatekeepers.
There's another kind I count myself to: realistic Linux users.
Linux can be a real alternative - if you have issues with Windows/Mac and are willing to tinker every once in a while. And you don't mind playing AAA competitive shooters since those come with rootkits that won't ever fly on Linux.
Not every user needs to be running every distro, that's why they make sense in the first place.
There are plenty of beginner friendly distros out there.
I'm not against improvement, but making every distro so easy for anyone to use isn't the goal.
I don't recommend Debian for beginners, but it has its place for many usecases.
Debian has gotten so much easier to install since the release of bookworm, so I wouldn' t be surprised more new users show interest to try it out.
fixed typo
If they can find the ISO to download. 😆
Every time I download the Debian ISO there is at least 1 “Why is this so hard?” thought.
If you can't figure out something as simple as intuitive download links, you probably shouldn't be in charge of a massive distro's website.