Installation: deprecate NOOBS, tweak page links #1769
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Just noticed this page is still recommending NOOBS, so this change aims to update it to point folk to Raspberry Pi Imager instead. I've also made some attempt to make use of the new Foundation-provided content, which somewhat supercedes what is in the installation section of the docs. The new Foundation-provided page at https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/ is simpler anything in this repo, so I've linked straight to that for Raspberry Pi Imager. It also has a handy video, which should explain the (fairly obvious) process in enough detail for most users. I've tweaked the links to the 3 sub-pages as follows: 1. `NOOBS` - still linked, but added a note that it is now deprecated. 2 `Installing Images` - I've added a bit of blurb pointing folk to that page if they need some extra help, as in most cases raspberrypi.org/software/ should be all folk need. I've also pointed folk to the forums for extra help as well. 3. `SD cards` - I've labelled this "further info about SD cards", since in most cases the info on this page should not really be needed, but it's there if folk require it.
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ping @XECDesign in case he has any thoughts / comments. |
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No issues with the PR from my end. |
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I can't decide whether I like the bullet-points or not (IMHO it looks weird having only two bullet-points, and not having NOOBS bulleted), so I'll leave the final decision to @JamesH65 😉 |
Yeah it's not perfect, but I thought I would put something up as a starting point at least, particularly as this page is still recommending NOOBS. I see that some resellers are still selling SD cards with NOOBS on - e.g. pimoroni.com. |
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OK, so after playing about with this a bit, I think lurch is right - it looks better with NOOBS as a third bullet point. Should be ready to roll now. |
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I've tweaked my edit to not mention that NOOBS is deprecated, since resellers are still selling cards with NOOBS on it. This PR should therefore be ready to roll. |
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LGTM, any other comments? |
If we've deprecated NOOBS (which we seem to have done, given that there are no links to it from the Download pages?), I'm not sure that some resellers still selling NOOBS SD-cards is a valid reason to not say that it's deprecated in our documentation? But I suspect that that's a decision for @aallan or @ghollingworth to make. |
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NOOBS is deprecated, we should therefore say that in the documentation. |
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I think someone should probably speak to a director about this, since there are clear business implications in terms of official resellers still selling cards with NOOBS on it. I would expect the correct approach is probably to send out a specific notice to all official resellers that NOOBS is being deprecated before announcing it on the website and in the docs. There doesn't need to be a blog post obviously, but it would be good to have a notice at the bottom of the main download page. Ideally the notice to official resellers would have been done already, e.g. when the website switched to recommending Raspberry Pi Imager instead of NOOBS. It may have been done already of course. Having a notice on the download page would clearly be helpful to users as well. A day or two ago a user popped up on the forums wondering why NOOBS was nowhere to be found: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=303015. |
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NOOBS has now been deprecated as a suitable tool for users to install themselves onto their SD cards. We've done this because we believe rpi-imager is a much better solution in this particular use case. But it is still the preferred image for pre-imaged SD cards. This is because our approved resellers require something that they can easily communicate with their customers how to get various different images to install onto the card. In future, this function will be replaced with something else that we've been working on in the background... So I'm happy with adding a note explaining that full NOOBS will still be pre-imaged onto official Raspberry Pi SD cards, but it is no longer the preferred method of installing images to the SD card. Gordon |
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Thank you for that explanation Gordon - that's the first time I've seen it mentioned that NOOBS is actually still the preferred option for resellers who sell pre-imaged SD cards. I will create some suitable wording. |
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One further question @ghollingworth: given there is now no download page for NOOBS, are you happy for me to change this PR so that it removes the instructions for how users can install NOOBS to an SD card themselves? (Since they can't really download it without a download page, although it is still available to download from the download server itself). |
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End users shouldn't be |
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Agree, removing those instructions should be fine and it will stop people getting confused! :) |
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Thanks everyone. I've added changes to the NOOBS page per Gordon's recommendations. |
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I've added mention of LibreELEC being included in NOOBS, since it now is. |
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Is there any reason why this should not be merged in? Apart from the conflicts? If not we should do so in the next couple of weeks. See #1911. |
Looking at the current state of the pages, it seems this PR has been superceded by other changes and is no longer necessary - closing. |
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Just noticed this page is still recommending NOOBS, so this change aims to update it to point folk to Raspberry Pi Imager instead. I've also made some attempt to make use of the new Foundation-provided content, which somewhat supercedes what is in the installation section of the docs.
The new Foundation-provided page at https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/ is simpler than anything in this repo, so I've linked straight to that for Raspberry Pi Imager. It also has a handy video, which should explain the (fairly obvious) process in enough detail for most users.
I've tweaked the links to the 3 sub-pages as follows:
NOOBS- still linked, but added a note that it is now deprecated.Installing Images- I've added a bit of blurb pointing folk to that page if they need some extra help, as in most cases raspberrypi.org/software/ should be all folk need. I've also pointed folk to the forums for extra help as well.SD cards- I've labelled this "further info about SD cards", since in most cases the info on this page should not really be needed, but it's there if folk require it.