From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2020 22:14:40 -0400
From: sl@stanleylieber.com
To: 9front@9front.org
Subject: Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page
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> isohybrid really is a hack, it's non-obvious that it should work at
> all, we already explain in the man pages what isohybrid is and when
> you google it you will find either the man page or the people who
came > up with it.

okay, went to add mention of isohybrid.  decided to pretend i was a
curious reader, confronted with the suggested text "relies on the
ISOHYBRID mechanism." since i don't want to come off like a humorless
jerk, i'll try again to explain why i questioned mentioning this on
the download page in the first place, and why i think it creates more
confusion than it's likely to alleviate, especially amongst the kind
of simultaneously curious, experienced, questioning, and incapable
user we're trying to protect from themselves by talking about this
stuff at all.

let's step through it:

	- "relies on the ISOHYBRID mechanism"

	- ISOHYBRID?  what's that?  do i need to install something
	else?

	; grep -i isohybrid /sys/man/*/*

	- hm, nothing there.  i guess it was a good thing i already
	had another 9front system installed so i could check, since
	someone on irc just told me it was explained in the man pages.
	but for some reason i didn't find it there.  (editor's note:
	this person didn't know to grep for 'iso hybrid' instead of
	'isohybrid')

	- (alternately, the reader may have tried CTRL-F to search the
	web-based man pages, and came up the same result.)

	- ddg/google search does reveal several linux man pages for
	various commands used to generate such an image, but nothing
	about any kind of standard.  do i need to install linux?

	- i'd better ask someone.  (/j #cat-v, echo help | mail
	9front@9front.org, etc.)

i realize i'm being slightly difficult, but i hope you can now
understand what i was trying to say.

my original point, which i really don't want to argue about anymore,
was just that mentioning isohybrid seemed more likely to cause
confusion than to alleviate it.  it's not necessary to mention what
mechanisms our installation relies upon if we're not asking the user
to take any action to ensure that mechanism is available.  i cut a
bunch of details from your suggested downloads.md precisely because
the information is ultimately more specific than helpful
(9front-specific instructions on how to make an sdcard to install
9front?) that said, i've added mention of isohybrid to the most recent
release announcement.

let me know if this sucks.

sl