Re: Suggestion: Change the link names on http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/debian-installer/

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Wednesday 25 November 2009, Simon Paillard wrote:
> > That would look like :
> > http://teubr.eu.org/~spaillar/debian/webwml/english/releases/lenny/deb
> >ian-installer/index.en.html
>
> Frans, any opinion about this ?

I wasn't planning to comment on this [1], but since you are asking me 
explicitly...

I think it's a truly horrible change.

I fully agree that our information about installation images is far from 
optimal and that a huge improvement is possible, but IMO this is not the 
way to go about it.

What is wrong with the change is that:
- it removes the *official* Debian architecture names and replaces them
  with something that *may* be more descriptive for some people, but
  essentially does not really make any difference as it still does not
  explain why a user should pick one architecture and not another
- it makes the pages a *lot* less readable because the current format
  cannot really handle the added line length and the added line
  wrapping because of that
- the spaces in the "descriptions" for some architecture are confusing
  because they imply breaks that are not there

Maybe you don't see the last that much if you have your browser window over 
the full width of your screen, but that is not how I for example prefer to 
have my browser.
Just compare the two attached screenshots. The "current" one is readable, 
the "now" one is not.

Do you really think that having "AMD64", "Intel x86" and "Intel IA-64" 
instead of amd64, i386, ia64 will make people magically choose AMD64 if 
they're looking for 64-bit Intel support?
IMO you've made things worse because "Intel x86" implies both 32-bit and 
64-bit support.
Do you really think that "EABI ARM" is more meaningful than armel?

The current pages would IMO be more improved by adding a clear link to a 
*separate* page with info on "how to choose the correct architecture", 
which contains a clear description of what each architecture is.

If you want to really improve the links to images, which you're very 
welcome to do, then please do it by *redesigning* the pages with the links 
instead of forcing changes into an existing layout where the changes do 
more harm than that they improve things.

Cheers.
FJP

[1] Any changes to D-I or d-cd pages *should* be checked with the 
respective teams on the d-boot or d-cd lists.