FreeBSD website redesign...

[cracauer@]

You can display movies as ASCII art in a pinch.

 

[T-Aoki]

Sure. As is probably done with this by handing it off to Firefox. But then why not just use Firefox?

Absolutely but that's a graphical thing which makes it not text based.

Visited the official site. Still confusing, but if I understand correctly, the final results are shown as text with escape sequences.
Rendered using headless firefox, then, transferred to the client part (not needed to be in the computer of the final user) through specially crafted extension, graphics and videos are rendered into something like ASCII art (per frame), and final user can connect to the client with ssh to see the text rendered pages.
Maybe I'm mis-understanding. Confusing.

 

[mer]

You can display movies as ASCII art in a pinch.

That would look like playing games on an Atari 800.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

That would look like playing games on an Atari 800.

That kind of cracks me up.

 

[cracauer@]

That would look like playing games on an Atari 800.

Exactly.

 

[mer]

Exactly.

I had a lot of fun back in the day with Pong.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

Had very competitive matches on Pong with my best friend back in the day. At least as competitive as you can get with Pong.

 

[Zare]

Here's a thing - if I'm a newcomer, I need to know this is not a Linux. And nothing on the front page points to it. Check QubesOS site, it looks same in principle. Check any Linux that doesn't use Linux in the name and it will look the same.

The front page needs to include the text from About section, I would slightly rewrite it

FreeBSD is an operating system for a variety of platforms which focuses on features, speed, and stability. Derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley, it is developed and maintained by a large community since 1993.

This is far more valuable "at a glance" info than having its own FS, hypervisor, network stack, documentation, whatever.
It's 2026 anyone can "have anything" especially in presentation.

Put another box like "Longetivity" or a better word and place the About text in there, below all other boxes.
Once somebody finishes "glancing" at those features he gets to read how this is a 30+ year old project. Not a joke. In my view it cements faith in the features above.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

if I'm a newcomer, I need to know this is not a Linux.

I have to agree with this and I complain about it often, elsewhere, about software upgrades and introductions where a link is given to the homepage that doesn't define--in any way, shape, or form--what the software does.

Now it's true that FreeBSD, and BSD in general, is pretty well known, but we still see comments online where some are uninformed. While I love the mottor, "The Power to Serve", there needs to be a sub-statement of some sort to define what it actually is. Such as "A direct Unix derived operating system." Or "A descendant of the Unix operating system."

 

[AlfredoLlaquet]

Here's a thing - if I'm a newcomer, I need to know this is not a Linux. And nothing on the front page points to it. Check QubesOS site, it looks same in principle. Check any Linux that doesn't use Linux in the name and it will look the same.

The front page needs to include the text from About section, I would slightly rewrite it



This is far more valuable "at a glance" info than having its own FS, hypervisor, network stack, documentation, whatever.
It's 2026 anyone can "have anything" especially in presentation.

Put another box like "Longetivity" or a better word and place the About text in there, below all other boxes.
Once somebody finishes "glancing" at those features he gets to read how this is a 30+ year old project. Not a joke. In my view it cements faith in the features above.

You are right but these little details normally don't count for anything. The attitude of the person visiting the website is much more important and you cannot control that. If a person can't even click on "About" if they are confused, I don't think they have much interest in FreeBSD. One would assume anyone who happens to land on freebsd.org has some inkling about what FreeBSD is. If not, no matter what the page says it is not going to convert a regular Joe into someone who installs FreeBSD on his laptop and ditches Linux or Windows.

 

[Matthew45]

Instead of white maybe grey or dark red background should be better for eyes.. this is just a mockup.. but current BSD home page looks pretty enough, and simple.

 

[mer]

Instead of white maybe grey or dark red background should be better for eyes.. this is just a mockup.. but current BSD home page looks pretty enough, and simple.

personal opinion here, dark vs light themes. Younger me was better with light background or "black letters on white paper". Middle aged and older me are "Dark background with lighter foreground". Old VT100's that were green text on black were what I started with, but now 40 yrs laters, are what is easy on the eyes.

 

[Matthew45]

I totaly agree with you..especially if you have led panel..man those whites blinds you And one more thing, for those coming on site for the first time..they will search for BIG Download button (literally)..if they see amd64 etc..they wont know what to choose (there are still people struggling with this) I know that amd 64 is right iso, but some newcomers will just stare so this download button by default when clicked, could show amd64 ISOs list, but if you want other iso there is a small arrow on the button to select from.

 

[freethread]

Matthew45 Your mockups look really "appetizing" (at least for my taste)

 

[Matthew45]

Matthew45 Your mockups look really "appetizing" (at least for my taste)

Thank you..i just wanted to share this concept in light and dark variants, with unix/server accent, who knows, maybe it will be useful for future design.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

Matthew45 I'm on my phone but I think I love it. Is that your design or AI or what?