RFC: add a downloads.md page

RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 545 bytes --]

i would replace in the side-menu the downloads section and the
sublinks mirrors,dash1, with just this single page.

reasoning:

1) right now the only way to find out about isohybrid possibility is
by reading the release notes from 2016, so i thought about what page
this would fit on best.
2) no images -> faster to get to actual download link (in comparison
to mirrors link that points to fqa)
3) dash1 can get directly downloaded with one click, but the iso not.

alternatively could add download page link to top bar, like current code link.

[-- Attachment #2: 9front-downloads.md --]
[-- Type: text/x-markdown, Size: 1887 bytes --]

Download 9front
================
Images
-----
Multiple installation media are provided for PC and rpi.

For PC the images can be either burned to CD as normal, or dd'ed directly to disk (relies on the ISOHYBRID mechanism).
The 386 version supports more drivers, amd64 having less.

For Raspberry Pi, SD card images are provided. dd them directly to an sd card (Example on 9front: gunzip -c /tmp/pi.img.gz > /dev/sdM0/data)

The pi.img file can be used for Rpi 1, 2 and 3.
The pi3.img file can be used for Rpi 3 and 4.

All files including the torrents are gzip compressed, gunzip first to get the iso or img file.

http://9front.org/iso/

http://9front.org/iso/9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.386.iso.gz

http://9front.org/iso/9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.386.iso.gz.torrent

http://9front.org/iso/9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.amd64.iso.gz

http://9front.org/iso/9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.amd64.iso.gz.torrent

http://9front.org/iso/9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.pi.img.gz

http://9front.org/iso/9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.pi.img.gz.torrent

http://9front.org/iso/9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.pi3.img.gz

http://9front.org/iso/9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.pi3.img.gz.torrent

cpu% sha1sum 9front-7781*.gz
3c20a32558536f751673215d7f543f8e9b1946ed    9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.386.iso.gz
e58a3f7d67e3937593ae0bf8b8c0dc7ed47c7535    9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.amd64.iso.gz
038a7c343dcbe687b4aec4e7ad84daea9f304b8d    9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.pi.img.gz
eed089e5be64a34e668cc4cd376b7c96524d035a    9front-7781.38dcaeaa222c.pi3.img.gz

Mirrors
-------
http://9front.org/iso/ 
http://r-36.net/9front/ 
http://felloff.net/usr/cinap_lenrek/9front.torrent 

Mercurial repository
--------------------
https://code.9front.org/hg/plan9front

DASH 1 MANUAL
-------------
http://fqa.9front.org/dash1.plan9haters.pdf

dash 1 and man pages in print: http://9front.org/propaganda/books

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[ori]

> i would replace in the side-menu the downloads section and the
> sublinks mirrors,dash1, with just this single page.
> 
> reasoning:
> 
> 1) right now the only way to find out about isohybrid possibility is
> by reading the release notes from 2016, so i thought about what page
> this would fit on best.
> 2) no images -> faster to get to actual download link (in comparison
> to mirrors link that points to fqa)
> 3) dash1 can get directly downloaded with one click, but the iso not.
> 
> alternatively could add download page link to top bar, like current code link.

Looks good, just a couple of nitpicks:

> For PC the images can be either burned to CD as normal, or dd'ed
> directly to disk (relies on the ISOHYBRID mechanism).  The 386
> version supports more drivers, amd64 having less.

DD'ed to disk sounds like you just write it to the hard drive, rather
than using it as install media. It also makes it sound like the default
for a new user should be the 386 version, and I'm not sure that's true.
(Maybe it is?)

	For PC the images can be either burned to CD, or dd'ed to a USB disk.
	The amd64 version supports larger quantities of memory, and is the
	focus of development. The 386 image has some drivers that may not
	yet be supported on amd64.

I also like the release artwork -- but fine. It can go.

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Stanley Lieber]

i think hiro meant a downloads page with few/no images would load quicker than the entire fqa page, which has quite a lot of images. he's right, we don't currently mention important stuff.

i think this is a good idea in general, but i can't look at the attachment until later. i agree, if we make a separate downloads page it can just be linked in the top bar.

if there are no objections i will just do this when i get some computer time.

sl

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Stanley Lieber]

whatever happened to due diligence? we already have something similar:

http://9front.org/iso/ <- linked in the sidebar.

i do agree though, changing this to 'download' and making it a full page with a little explanatory text is a good idea.

sl

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Stanley Lieber]

looked at hiro's downloads.md and reviewed the existing site. i'm not in love with duplicating all these disparate links to individual files that will change with every release.  we already put almost all of this stuff into each release announcement. why don't we just replace iso/ with downloads/ and make that load the latest release page, and cause werc to inject a header with the explanatory text? this accomplishes the same thing but only has to be written once. i agree, it should then be linked in the top bar. as far as i'm concerned we can drop the link to the dash1 pdf from the sidebar, reducing clutter alongside other superfluous links like coc/ and n/.

it would also be appropriate to mention the hybrid iso in the corresponding fqa section, and add any other long omitted (four years!) and sorely lacking information, but i sense an underlying urge to segregate frequently questioned answers from the existing collection of frequently questioned answers. "this is natural, but it is done." --malcolm x. maybe someone can submit patches, or at least detail that and other missing info in an article for the new community docs repository. we already link to a mirror of that in the top bar.

sl

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Kurt H Maier]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 07:34:20PM -0400, Stanley Lieber wrote:
> looked at hiro's downloads.md and reviewed the existing site. i'm not in love with duplicating all these disparate links to individual files that will change with every release.  we already put almost all of this stuff into each release announcement. why don't we just replace iso/ with downloads/ and make that load the latest release page, and cause werc to inject a header with the explanatory text? this accomplishes the same thing but only has to be written once. i agree, it should then be linked in the top bar. as far as i'm concerned we can drop the link to the dash1 pdf from the sidebar, reducing clutter alongside other superfluous links like coc/ and n/.

I like this plan, depending on what the explanatory text is explaining.
I don't think it should be a complete education on rendering the media
unto disk; it should be sufficient to mention that the isos are also
bootable usb images and the img files are for sd cards.

> it would also be appropriate to mention the hybrid iso in the corresponding fqa section, and add any other long omitted (four years!) and sorely lacking information, but i sense an underlying urge to segregate frequently questioned answers from the existing collection of frequently questioned answers. "this is natural, but it is done." --malcolm x. maybe someone can submit patches, or at least detail that and other missing info in an article for the new community docs repository. we already link to a mirror of that in the top bar.

This would be a great contribution; for those playing along at home the
fqa source is in https://code.9front.org/hg/fqa.9front.org and you can
send patches to this list.

khm

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[sl]

here's what i did:

- integrated most of the requested information into the latest and all
future release announcements.  this seems like a good place for the
information, and alleviates having to duplicate it anywhere else on
the site (except for more detailed instructions in the fqa; see
below).  note: this still requires loading some images, but is the
difference in load time really that meaningful?

- download/ added to the top bar on all 9front sites (redirects to
releases/).

- bugs.9front.org removed from the top bar on all 9front sites (nobody
complained when the bugs.9front.org front page has been defunct for
several years).  which reminds me: http://9front.org/bugtracker

- iso/ removed from the sidebar (redundant).

- releases/ moved from About: to Download: on the sidebar.

- kept the link to the dash 1 under Download:, because why not have it
there?  unless we create a long list of all the available files to be
downloaded, we're never going to have "one click" downloading of
bootable files on the front page.  if there is some compelling
argument for removing more helpful links from the sidebar, please let
me know.

here's what needs to be done:

- someone write a patch for fqa4 detailing specific instructions for
creating bootable media in all the present forms we support.  we
already have old instructions, but they were never updated to reflect
the changes made since 2016.  once that's done, we can also link to it
specifically in the release announcement.

- fqa documentation of rpi stuff is so far outdated as to be useless.

it may seem like i'm parsing this awfully finely here, but i'm not
sure how much extra effort is justified to satisfy the
"zero-to-installed" metric for users incapable of locating the
.iso/.img files, or for ones incapable of conceiving what to do with
them once they've found them.  the location of the files has never
been a mystery, and what to do with them is the same thing you'd do
with an .iso or .img from any operating system.  i do think the
instructions are good to provide, i'm just not sure it all belongs on
the download page, be that the primary or auxiliary variety.

anyway, let me know if this sucks.

sl

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

> replace iso/ with downloads/

exactly. i noticed the overlap and forgot to recommend removal/replacement.
you could say all we do with this is rename iso and add some text to it.

semantics.

@ori: yes, 386 is kinda our goto, our default distribution. case in
point amd64 isos until recently didn't exist.

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

big complaint: omission of "isohybrid"

On 8/19/20, sl@stanleylieber.com <sl@stanleylieber.com> wrote:
> here's what i did:
>
> - integrated most of the requested information into the latest and all
> future release announcements.  this seems like a good place for the
> information, and alleviates having to duplicate it anywhere else on
> the site (except for more detailed instructions in the fqa; see
> below).  note: this still requires loading some images, but is the
> difference in load time really that meaningful?
>
> - download/ added to the top bar on all 9front sites (redirects to
> releases/).
>
> - bugs.9front.org removed from the top bar on all 9front sites (nobody
> complained when the bugs.9front.org front page has been defunct for
> several years).  which reminds me: http://9front.org/bugtracker
>
> - iso/ removed from the sidebar (redundant).
>
> - releases/ moved from About: to Download: on the sidebar.
>
> - kept the link to the dash 1 under Download:, because why not have it
> there?  unless we create a long list of all the available files to be
> downloaded, we're never going to have "one click" downloading of
> bootable files on the front page.  if there is some compelling
> argument for removing more helpful links from the sidebar, please let
> me know.
>
> here's what needs to be done:
>
> - someone write a patch for fqa4 detailing specific instructions for
> creating bootable media in all the present forms we support.  we
> already have old instructions, but they were never updated to reflect
> the changes made since 2016.  once that's done, we can also link to it
> specifically in the release announcement.
>
> - fqa documentation of rpi stuff is so far outdated as to be useless.
>
> it may seem like i'm parsing this awfully finely here, but i'm not
> sure how much extra effort is justified to satisfy the
> "zero-to-installed" metric for users incapable of locating the
> .iso/.img files, or for ones incapable of conceiving what to do with
> them once they've found them.  the location of the files has never
> been a mystery, and what to do with them is the same thing you'd do
> with an .iso or .img from any operating system.  i do think the
> instructions are good to provide, i'm just not sure it all belongs on
> the download page, be that the primary or auxiliary variety.
>
> anyway, let me know if this sucks.
>
> sl
>

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[telephil9]

On Wed Aug 19 14:16:40 CES 2020, 23hiro@gmail.com wrote:
> > replace iso/ with downloads/
> 
> exactly. i noticed the overlap and forgot to recommend removal/replacement.
> you could say all we do with this is rename iso and add some text to it.
> 
> semantics.
> 
> @ori: yes, 386 is kinda our goto, our default distribution. case in
> point amd64 isos until recently didn't exist.

out of curiosity, is there a good reason to have 386 the default instead of amd64 ?

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

yes, bec. it supports more drivers.

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

but now everybody can decide what they want to try first, it's easy to
just download both, so if something isn't supported it's easy to
switch to the other one to narrow down the problems... before trying
all kinds of acpi combinations or grepping for the device ids, etc.
etc.

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Stanley Lieber]

> big complaint: omission of "isohybrid"

why does the word need to be mentioned?

sl

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

bec. it's extremely confusing for a computer professional to imagine
that an iso could be just written to a disk and still work without any
special magic software being utilized (which is one google of
isohybrid away, if it's mentioned.)

On 8/19/20, Stanley Lieber <sl@stanleylieber.com> wrote:
>> big complaint: omission of "isohybrid"
>
> why does the word need to be mentioned?
>
> sl
>

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Stanley Lieber]

On August 19, 2020 9:25:01 AM EDT, hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:
>bec. it's extremely confusing for a computer professional to imagine
>that an iso could be just written to a disk and still work without any
>special magic software being utilized (which is one google of
>isohybrid away, if it's mentioned.)
>
>On 8/19/20, Stanley Lieber <sl@stanleylieber.com> wrote:
>>> big complaint: omission of "isohybrid"
>>
>> why does the word need to be mentioned?
>>
>> sl
>>

i don't have any problem adding the word, but this is a thin argument. we already say it works. i guess i was too stupid to be confused. fuller explanation would be appropriate in the real documentation.

sl

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

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.

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

about rpi info in the fqa:
there's this old mail
http://mail.9fans.net/pipermail/9fans/2019-January/037389.html
but not sure if that's the latest info, at least pi2 is probably pi3
now in the meantime.

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Stanley Lieber]

On August 19, 2020 4:01:38 PM EDT, hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:
>about rpi info in the fqa:
>there's this old mail
>http://mail.9fans.net/pipermail/9fans/2019-January/037389.html
>but not sure if that's the latest info, at least pi2 is probably pi3
>now in the meantime.

since i don't have the hardware i'm not going to attempt to verify and rewrite 9fans rpi stuff. imo, it would probably be best to just integrate other architectures into fqa4, rather than having separate appendices for every junk platform. our setup on rpi is worked out much better now than when mveety wrote the current documentation.

sl

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

> i don't have any problem adding the word, but this is a thin argument

clarity is often subtle, so perhaps a thin argument should be enough.
otoh what's your argument to omit the mention? it's not like i went
into some distracting details...

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Stanley Lieber]

On August 19, 2020 7:12:59 PM EDT, hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:
>> i don't have any problem adding the word, but this is a thin argument
>
>clarity is often subtle, so perhaps a thin argument should be enough.
>otoh what's your argument to omit the mention? it's not like i went
>into some distracting details...

i don't have an argument against it, hiro. you seem to need to see it mentioned, and i have no reason to refuse you. but this was framed as if omitting it was a problem, so i was asking why it was a problem. i'm trying to follow your chain of logic so i understand it clearly. so far, we have: "it's subtle." my point was that i doubt the information is critical. we already say it works. if it doesn't work, knowing the magic word isn't going to make it work. i've typed a long paragraph here to answer your question as comprehensively as i can.

i think we should also still provide a fuller explanation in the fqa section about bootable media.

sl

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[sl]

> 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

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

the way it is right now it emphasizes there's something special about
our version of dd (linking to it is already too much detail).
this doesn't help explain *why* it would be possible to just dd a .iso
to a disk and have it be bootable without extra instructions.

for example somebody might wonder if they have to set their bios up in
a particular ISO on disk way.

the idea that you can just dd the ISO and there's magically already a
MBR is non-obvious but easily understandable by dropping the unique
word that explains the hack "isohybrid". most people, even the ones
who will never google this term will still be helped bec. they will at
least know there's a dedicated mechanism that makes this possible.

i hope this adds some info being phrased slightly differently and
obviously longer

On 8/20/20, Stanley Lieber <sl@stanleylieber.com> wrote:
> On August 19, 2020 7:12:59 PM EDT, hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> i don't have any problem adding the word, but this is a thin argument
>>
>>clarity is often subtle, so perhaps a thin argument should be enough.
>>otoh what's your argument to omit the mention? it's not like i went
>>into some distracting details...
>
> i don't have an argument against it, hiro. you seem to need to see it
> mentioned, and i have no reason to refuse you. but this was framed as if
> omitting it was a problem, so i was asking why it was a problem. i'm trying
> to follow your chain of logic so i understand it clearly. so far, we have:
> "it's subtle." my point was that i doubt the information is critical. we
> already say it works. if it doesn't work, knowing the magic word isn't going
> to make it work. i've typed a long paragraph here to answer your question as
> comprehensively as i can.
>
> i think we should also still provide a fuller explanation in the fqa section
> about bootable media.
>
> sl
>

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

ok, i guess you're venturing to change "iso hybrid" to "isohybrid" in
the man pages?

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

btw, i like all other omissions of text that you came up with a lot.
i would have really liked no images on the download page, so that you
don't have to wait and scroll down first (or worse have to press back
and scroll down and click again bec. the page scrolled down when the
image got ready just in the moment you were about to click
originally), but at least you have to wait less long now as this page
loads slightly faster.

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

perhaps you just aren't happy how i phrased it?
what do you think about this instead? (made possible by the ISOHYBRID mechanism)

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[ori]

> perhaps you just aren't happy how i phrased it?
> what do you think about this instead? (made possible by the ISOHYBRID mechanism)

How do you expect someone trying to download the ISO to
make use of this information? Should we also mention the
Joliet and Rock Ridge ISO extensions we use in order to
fit our file names and unix permissions into an ISO?

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Ethan Gardener]

looks like the wording is fixed. looks good to me; very brief with all the essentials except maybe mention of rawrite or whatever. on the other hand, the page is so long, firefox fails at simple text search, but maybe that's just firefox. i mean http://9front.org/releases/

@sl:
it's possible the sheer length of that page delays loading the first image in some browsers. if that's not the problem, you could perhaps hard-code the height of the image in html. or maybe werc could find the image size. if you want to do it that way and don't have anything better, the following awk code will print the size of a plan 9 image:
/^compressed$/ {next}; {print $4-$2, $5-$3; exit}

@hiro:
i recall hybrid isos long before the "isohybrid" word appeared, so much so that the introduction of the word confused me. ;) in freedos, osdev, and formerly 9front communities, i've also seen several instances of people expecting isos to be hybrids, being confused when they weren't. i'm thinking your confused professionals must be a rare breed! ;)

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[hiro]

i wasn't aware eekee, i thought syslinux/isolinux people with their
isohybrid "mechanism" were the first to popularize this approach.

the word isohybrid is very specific so i thought it's the best way to
reference it in a way it can be googled for.

mentioning something about an MBR might work, but it might need more words.

i don't know what "tip" refers to in the current text - it seems like
irony probably, directed at me or linux.

Re: [9front] RFC: add a downloads.md page

[Stanley Lieber]

since "isohybrid" seems to be confusing everyone who talks about it, i have removed the offending sentence from the release announcement. i will add a more detailed discussion and a link to the "iso hybrid" section in the 9boot man page) in fqa4. people will just have to live with their surprise when the usb stick successfully boots.

sl