Web site & download

[Mark Ballard]

Thanks, Ryan, Karl, Phil. (I'm on digest mail - must get changed).

I  just went back to the website to check the HD requirements. Couldn't see
them. I'm sure I'm not looking hard enough, or rummaging through the
undergrowth tenaciously enough. But the point about requirements is it
could be spelled out more clearly, as could some of the other things I
pointed out. The same goes for the checksum - which I couldn't find for the
version I was given when I downloaded. And for the the info about LTS - oh
that means long term support, does it? Now you tell me. And what does that
mean? This is a rhetorical question.

The thing about torrent / checksum, I can see is a real problem. How do
solve the server strain problem if you don't use torrent? And how do you
use torrent without introducing the use of a third party intrusion into the
download/install process that might just really turn a lot of potential
users off? And how do you introduce torrent without having to introduce a
checksum? For me, the question is why can't all this be automated?

Meantime, at least it can be spelled out very clearly what needs to be
done, why it needs to be done and how it needs to be done with well chosen
links to simple step-by-step guides to, e.g. installing and using a torrent
programme. That last step is easy enough, but any new step, new thing to
learn is simply a barrier.

I'm not saying everything necessarily needs to be spelled out in
kindergarten language - just simple, plain English: with a thought for what
sense the language and presentation may give to those users for whom the
terms, procedures and processes are not familiar; and with the website
design arranged around the path a user must follow, not around the nice
template the graphic designer has done. That means treating users not like
idiots (I'm not saying you are treating users like idiots - I'm thinking of
how that's how the first incarnation of Unity seemed, that this is what
happens when you get people treating users like idiots). Users are not
idiots but intelligent ignoramuses with too little time on their hands to
be getting incomplete or inconsistent information and having to learn about
new things on the fly, like torrents and checksums, when they have been led
to expect that you do just press a button and have it all done for you.

My mistake - it is of course not 'Get Ubuntu' that I clicked on, but 'Get
Lubuntu'. It took me to a page of info about all the different versions it
seems I can't download unless I go searching for them elsewhere anyway. You
get stuck in a sort of documentation cul-de-sac. So I wasted my time
reading through and thinking about which would be the most appropriate
version to install - an interesting question since I seem to remember their
each having different requirements. Even when that's read through, you have
to start looking around for where to download. This is the 'Get Lubuntu'
section isn't it? Well then, where do I get Lubuntu? Back to the home page:
oh my god, all this clutter. What's this help page have? What's this
download? Is that the version I want? Where's 11.10? I want 11.10. The help
page says under 12.04 that "The Lubuntu team doesn't offer an LTS release
at this time". I happen to know what LTS is because someone just told me.
Mein gott. You have to be like Sherlock Holmes just to download a piece of
software. I'm going to shut up now.
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