I'm an intermittent user of and occasional contributor to Freedos and
I have been struck lately by how un user-friendly some key parts of
the public interface are.
In particular, I'm concerned with the website download page.
I recently wanted to make a live CD for a particular job so I went to
the home page to get the software. Click on [Download Freedos]
What?
Firstly, the whole thing is too wordy. I just want to download an
ISO image and I'm on the downloads page so where is it?
Secondly, ------------------------------------
The MD5 sums for the FreeDOS Beta9SR2 main files are:
799906c1829db2957548f2f860f7f666 fdbootcd.iso (patch 5/2006)
no update - please avoid file! fdfullcd.iso (still the old iso!)
31bf499be78bfa8300f55b199d612d57 fdos1440.img (boot helper
diskette)
0606c3411a930ffa4cf1d53e7e931af5 rawrite.exe (writes img to
diskette)
Don't download these "broken" ISO files (old version):
751556e9b8e3806efd80cf3d896aa754 fdbootcd.iso.broken (original
11/2005)
073b78ef205fb46af613c44934b6e29a fdfullcd.iso.broken (original
11/2005)
----------------------------------------- WHAT???
If these files are "broken", what on earth are they doing there? At
the very least it's confusing, at worst potential users will just go
away and do something else.
Freedos is a brilliant project and will be useful and used for
decades to come but having a "better mousetrap" is only beneficial if
it looks like a better mousetrap, is easy to get hold of and use, etc
I have criticized the download page here. I could find criticisms of
other pages or what appears when booting from a CD but the general
point is that these should all be pitched primarily at new/potential
users rather than those who already know.
This is an offer to help thinly disguised as a rant. Please let me
know what you'd like me to do.
--
Bob Stammers
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by
people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at
all.
--Dale Carnegie
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