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.
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.