On Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 5:50 PM, Henrik Rosenø wrote: > When I finally get to a page from where I can download a DVD ISO-image of
The front page has a link to download the 64-bit PC Network installer, how can we make that more obvious to you? https://www.debian.org/ > the Debian OS - https://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/#stable - I get these > options to choose from: All of the /CD and /distrib pages are due for a reorganisation since years, many people have complained but not enough of them were willing to work on it. > How on Earth am I to know which to choose?? We have some infrastructure to translate between architecture names and non-technical descriptions of those architectures but unfortunately it isn't used consistently throughout the website, including this page. https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/releases/arches.data?view=co Also, I guess most non-technical users will never have even heard of anything except PC and mac. Due to Apple changing hardware suppliers, ironically both of those are now the same architecture (amd64) so I wonder if people are assuming Debian doesn't support macs now, since our amd64 architecture is only described as "64-bit PC". The phrase "64-bit PC" doesn't even describe other places where the amd64 architecture is used, including on servers, tablets and some smartphones. Then there is the problem of the rise in ARM-based architectures on various smartphones, tablets, the Raspberry Pi, Chromebooks etc. I doubt many non-technical users associate any of these devices with the ARM architectures. So, I don't think it is feasible to explain to non-technical users which architecture they want, especially since that changes over time as hardware companies bring out new products and is very dependent on the marketing resources of global computer vendors. Ultimately a semi-automated human-guided detection system might be the only way to go but there probably aren't any people who have time and skills to implement that. Probably the easiest we can do is list popular operating system and hardware category combinations: Laptop after 2006 running Apple macOS -> amd64 Laptop before 2006 running Apple macOS -> powerpc (but probably no longer supported) Tablet running Apple iOS -> sorry no support unless you are a hardcore hacker Smartphone running Apple iOS -> sorry no support unless you are a hardcore hacker Laptop running Microsoft Windows -> amd64 Tablet running Microsoft Windows -> amd64 Tablet running Microsoft Windows RT -> sorry no support Smartphone running Google Android -> sorry no support unless you are a geek or are willing to use one of the chroot apps. Laptop running Google Chrome -> sorry no support unless you are a geek Weird IoT devices -> uh, could be any of mips mipsel armel armhf, probably not supported unless you are a geek Server -> amd64 Old server -> sparc64? New server from IBM -> ppc64el Server from companies selling ARM stuff -> arm64 Router -> uh, could be any of mips mipsel armel armhf, probably not supported unless you are a geek Mainframe -> s390x Other -> ?? > This puts the Debian website in the 100% nerd/geek category where the rest > of us just walk away. > Do you want me to find another Linux distribution instead? Please use a more friendly tone on Debian lists in future, as suggested by our codes of conduct: https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct https://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- bye, pabs https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
