 Debian is a fantastic distribution. I'm in the middle of a long-term review right now And I've been using it now for a couple months on a secondary hard drive and on a on a laptop that I use every day And it is a fantastic distribution. It's very stable and it's very popular The community is very good and very large it has a lot of stuff going for it And I will cover all that in my long-term review which should happen towards the end of the month But the point of this video today is to talk about their website now I have talked about their website before and there have been some updates since then So I wanted to kind of cover those and kind of discuss why their website still is kind of terrible So today we're going to talk about the problem with finding a Debian ISO Let's go ahead and jump in but before we do if you'd leave a thumbs up on this video I'd really appreciate it. It really does help the channel. Let's go ahead and talk about the Debian website So this right here is the Debian website and it is not an ugly website I don't care about the aesthetics Honestly when I judge a distribution's website, I never really care about the aesthetics even though I tend to Gravitate towards distributions that do a better job with making their websites aesthetically pleasing That's really neither here nor there. I don't care really what the website looks like what I want it to be is functional Now in the past when you wanted to find a Debian ISO It was a pain in the rear end. It was really Really bad like horrible And the reason why that was the case is because if you hit the download button Which you'd expect to take directly to the iso you'd get a page that looked something like this And the problem is is that the link on this page before was a link to the iso that had no Non-free software on it So that means any proprietary firmware that you needed to run things like wi-fi cards Or bluetooth adapters or printers or any of that stuff none of that stuff was included on the iso That was the default of Debian for Basically the entire time Debian has existed Now that is a political stance that they chose to Follow for many years and over the course of the last two years They've actually decided to reverse that so now if you come to this page here after pressing that download button You can see a link to the Debian iso for the net install And that does now include an option for you to install the non-free firmware somewhere along the line during installation So the upgrade to their linking system is Good Just off the bat if you want to find just a standard Debian installer That will also allow you to install in the vast majority of pcs, which is Something that I think everybody wants to do because most people need those proprietary Non-free drivers and such in order to run their computers You can find that link very easily right here on the first page You get to after clicking the download button But because i'm a negative Nancy as they call me I guess I have to point out some things that are Not so great about this one page right here And then we'll move on to some other criticisms that I have Or that are still relevant from the last time I talked about this first We have this gigantic block of important right here And this is to verify your download with a checksum Now first of all the vast majority of people who download an iso I'm just making a blanket general statement here, but and it might maybe wrong I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that the vast majority people when they download an iso do not check their checksum in fact In the comment section below Let me know if you actually check the checksums check sums of the isos that you download I would bet that you're probably in the minority. I'm just guessing I mean everybody should do that, but I bet you that they don't they highlight that Right here on this page what that causes though is that everyone's eyes on this page Are immediately drawn to that highlighted section. They're not drawn to this Link up here where you actually need to click in order to get to the iso Okay, so that's the first thing that I would criticize here Okay, when I come to this page, I don't see that up there immediately I see this and then because I'm reading top to bottom I start here and go down Now I get past I get to the other installers and we'll talk about this in a minute But this is the iso that they want you to download and they have conveniently put it above something that draws your eyes away from it Also on this page. I don't know if you've noticed, but it says thank you for downloading debian Now when you see that what do you think about? Well, you think that the download has already started I mean if you've already if you're thanking me for something I assume that you've already done that thing for me. That's what I assume obviously When the save as dialogue doesn't pop up you are going to realize that the download has not indeed started but The phrasing of that is a little weird because it just makes me assume that the download is going to start automatically When in fact you still have to click on this link here So those are my two criticisms on this page and honestly, I don't care about them all that much it's so much better to have one iso that I know I can get an actually install on my computer and Have it work with all the hardware that I have the fact that that iso is now Basically front and center with some tweaks. It could be better, but it's basically front and center that makes me happy However, and of course, you knew that there was a however I will say that they do still make it quite interesting to find other isos So I will before I get into that I will say this it is better than it was before I mean Astronomically better than it was before because before if you wanted to find The live installer isos You'd have two options. You'd have the ones that came with no non-free software You'd also also find the live isos of ones that came with non-free software And those were buried somewhere on their website If you knew the special dance and handshake in the password You probably could find them by navigating through some special sauce on their website But only if you knew what you're doing most people probably would be able to find them through google Which is the way that I always found them nowadays. It's not as hard I will say that so other installers here and they've done a good job of making this the Second biggest text on the on the page Which is good And then you click here and then you get a list of other places to find isos, which is good So so far we're two clicks into the website not a big deal Usually though when I want to get to an iso I wanted to have Just two clicks, you know, just the download button and then maybe one other Once you get past that it becomes a little bit more tedious right now I understand that it's not that big a deal. Just it feels like a design flaw And my problem with this page here Is that the one that you're probably wanting is not front and center on the page So if that first iso wasn't going to do you You probably don't need another link to it right here. I'm assuming that you probably don't need that also Interestingly, they made the download link for the iso which we saw on the other page much bigger on this page than it was on the other page So that's weird, right? Also, if you're looking for another iso You may be looking for a minimal iso So that is right in front center They also have one that's kind of larger and has other Stuff in it a whole bunch of Packages and stuff making it easier to install my machines without an internet connection and stuff like that So they have that right here. Those are both good to have front and center the cloud image Doesn't do a very good job of explaining what a cloud image actually is but we'll bypass that I'm assuming it's probably from what I can see it's used to be built on servers and things like that for clouds Why that right there is front and center when the one that you probably want is this one here that is actually below the fold This one here try to be in live before installing That's the one that you probably want But that's like I said, you have to scroll down in order to get to there Now one of the things you guys have to realize when I'm talking about all of this stuff is that I have a very dim view of human nature to me everyone is a lazy lazy person and Most people don't have the attention span to do anything like scrolling down One time people just don't really do that There's a reason why when you visit a website that has a whole bunch of ads on it Usually the most ads you are found in a place where They're seen immediately upon page load, right? The people who place those ads want the most people to see them Therefore they put them so they don't have an impediment to people seeing them So if you had to scroll down to the ad, you know It's probably not going to be seen as much as one that you don't have to scroll on right Same thing here people may not want to scroll down, right now to me obviously that's not a it's not a huge deal But it's still a thing that I would just switch these This here and that there most people who regular normies are going to come here and not want the cloud images They're going to want the live installer and when you click on this then we get into the problems. Okay? This is just overall Not a fantastic design for a website What it does here is it shows the age of debian So Debian has been around for 30 years and we're all happy that it's still here It's the basis for many distributions including a boon to including linux mint Anything based on a boon to obviously It's a very well known well used distribution and it's old Though so it has some very old style design Inclinations I should say so explains everything you need to know about the live install images But where are all those damn things right? Well, you scroll down and then you have to know like this is you guys gotta remember when I talk about this stuff I'm also talking about from a perspective of a new Linux user Like if you're a new user and you hear these wonderful things about debian being the most stable distribution You could possibly use I mean they literally call stable right in the release name, right? So you hear about all this stuff and then they make it a little bit too difficult to find the ISO that you want so you have to know what amd64 actually means You have to know what the difference is in all of these things and It's not great for new users. Also. We're like four clicks into it now So you have to be interested enough to get this far which most people are not so once you click on this thing You get another page of text You get another another page text We're going to we're going to learn how to verify or download which again We've already discussed that most people don't do Even if they should they don't do it and then they you have to scroll all the way down And then you're finally going to get to the isos and when you do get to the isos look at the list of isos that they have So you have the iso itself You have the contents file you have a log file for each desktop environment that they have also a package list file And then another log file Okay, so they have five files for every Desktop environment that they offer So you have to know as a new user what you actually are supposed to click on in order to get these things now That's not a huge impediment if you if you are going to use linux You should be at least knowledgeable enough to know what an iso is But the fact that they have this it just makes it look like a convoluted mess to me Just have links to each of the desktop environments that you're going to have and just download the iso I don't need this extra stuff. It doesn't do us any good to have here. This is a treat. This is a file tree This is what that is. It's a file tree and It looks fine for developers and for linux nerds, but for anyone else who is searching through this stuff It's not that great. It's not great design Now I will say that this is about three or four or five clicks better than it used to be Like I said before this is better than it used to be But it still feels like they're burying These isos which makes it feel like they don't want you to use them And if that's the case why they create them? That's my that's my overarching question Is if you're going to bury the isos That most people probably should use like if you haven't tried the regular debian installer these days It's not hard, but it's definitely not the most user friendly installer out there It's definitely not going to be as user friendly as calamaris, which is what those live isos actually offer So my question is this why do they bury the ones that are the easiest the furthest away from the front page? It doesn't make sense to me unless of course We're automatically assuming then that debian is not for new users So if that's the conclusion that we're all going to come to that's fine Okay, we can say that and if that's true It's 100 fine because not everything has to be for new users We have gentu for a reason gentu is definitely not for new users We have linux from scratch definitely not for even advanced users, right? Most people are not going to use linux from scratch most people are not going to use Gentu or any of even any of its derivatives even if they are they are easier to install, right? That's just that's fine Not everything has to be for new users, but debian is different from those I would argue debian is a very popular linux distribution It's a distribution that new linux users are going to hear about They're going to be able to hear about it from people who use ubuntu because they're going to hear that ubuntu is based on debian They're going to hear about it from every blog post out there touting the five most stable linux distributions out there It's going to be something that people are going to hear about And when they go to look for debian and look for the iso, they'll either end up with the regular iso Which is fine But also not the most user friendly or they're going to have to go spelunking into a file tree Trying to figure out which file that they actually need to download the iso mess on debian Is improved from what it was before it's definitely better than it was but it's still not great And that is just probably the most disappointing part about debian Now like I said, I'm working on a long term review, but I will provide some spoilers here debian is a really good distribution It is Fantastically stable if you're gonna if you want a stable distribution you want something that you don't care about the Brand new software features that you're going to get in kde or whatever software You just want something that works and it's always going to work and you don't have to update it every three or four days debian is Fantastic the biggest disappointment. I constantly have With debian is the iso situation and like I said, it's gotten better, but it's still not great So that's it for this video. If you have thoughts on this, you can leave those in the comment section below I don't know why I did that when I was talking about the comment section But you can tell what I'm gonna say next if you haven't already leave a thumbs up. It really does help the channel I really appreciate it You can follow me on mastodon or odyssey those links will be in the video description You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the linux cast links for kofi and youtube And paypal will be in the video description as well Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon and youtube you guys are all absolutely amazing Without you the challenges would not be anywhere near where it is right now So thank you so very very very very very much for your support. I truly do appreciate it. You guys are awesome Thank you so much. Thanks everybody for watching. 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