I'm a happy Debian user so don't get me wrong, but why is debian.org so ugly? It looks like a site build 100 years ago....

I disagree......It looks like a pretty clean and simple design with a minimum of clever "features" that tend to screw things up.

It's a very utilitarian design, that's for sure.

A website for a distro should reflect the distro. In Debian's case, it's lightweight, easy to navigate and very functional. Why do people think a site needs flash or graphics or videos to be any good?

Five DVDs is hardly "lightweight".

A description of appearance (in this case, "ugly") should not be confused with a description of usefulness (in this case, "any good"). Two very separate ideas happening here.

5 DVDs, as has been said many many many times before, are for people who want to download the whole set to install offline. I use the netinstall which is 135-175mb or you can even get the image for a 50mb CD. Horses for courses, but lightweight doesn't mean how many DVDs or CDs you can get.

As to the ugliness, it's all in the eye of the beholder. The designers believe in a minimal look and that, to them, looks good.

Have you not tried the netinstall disc?

http://www.us.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

Also for a lightweight Debian install the following guide is really useful:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=13362

Works for me.

Edit:XavierP beat me to it!

Regardless, the full distro is five dvds, which is not lightweight. It's a full distro, with lots of options, which is nothing to be ashamed of.

Regardless, having to read an install guide to change a full distro into a "lightweight install" does not change the fact that it is a full (and mighty big) distro. Accept it. It's five DVDs of magic. five dvds!!!! You can't get fuller than that. That's the antithesis of compact. It's the antithesis of small. It's big. It's gigantic. In fact, I can't think of a distro that's larger. 5 dvds!!!! Is there a larger distro? I think not.

The 5 DVDs also include apps off the main repos. If any distro offered a full download of the OS and the repos they too would be on 5 DVDs. And lightweight doesn't mean the number of install media, it refers to startup, options and services enabled and general bloatiness or lack of it.

I guess you could sum it up as Debian is as big as you want it to be.
If you want to install every package from five DVD's you can.
Alternatively you can have a minimalist system with no X,gui or anything.
I think it's one of the great things about Debian,you are in control of the install.
You are not tied in to what someone else thinks should be on your system.

Totally agree, but is debian a cruft ridden mess? I'd say no.

Debian.org is maybe lightweight but it's certainly not easy to navigate or at all functional. The site is a right mess and incredibly difficult to decipher. This is mainly due to info cruft gathering on almost all pages. The text is waay to lenghy and almost impossible to scan for the stuff you are looking for. It needs some serious editing in my view.

Comments like the above crop up in every discussion about the debian website, it't totally irrelevant. Nobody has mentioned flash or videos or even images.

The current website in a visual mess that makes it *very* hard to find stuff. The website could be redesigned to be even lighter but much much clearer and even beautiful.

Visual design and function are very much connected when it comes to information for human digestion. The idea that the debian website is good because it's old-school is rubbish. If the site was just Html text with no formatting it would probably be better. Much of the design of w.d.o actually makes it worse than a totally undesigned website.

Being ugly does not make it lighter!

just to decipher it:
if one clicks on "getting debian" one is getting linked to the sides where one might download the different images. if one then clicks on "http", one might download from a http-server. if one then clicks on "stable", one gets linked to download the stable branch...

if one clicks on " support" one is getting linked to the sides where one gets support on different questions (documentation, wiki, known problems...)

...

that shouldn`t be to hard.

and i don`t think its ugly (but i`ve never thought about it before).
greetings