Re: I need a computer with a friendly Unix-based user operating system!

["Tom and Esther Ward" <tward1978 earthlink net>]

Hi, Tim.
At present the Linux assistive technologies such as Gnopernicus and Gok  are
still very much in early stages of development.
I'm not really sure that either one of these projects would be a good
solution at this time.
Many of the Gnome and KDE applications have not been updated to support the
accessibility guidelines yet.
If your looking for shell based access there are several screen readers to
choose from, but for the Gnome desktop there is only Gnopernicus at this
time.
As far as I know the only Linux based on screen keyboard is Gok, and it also
still is in early development. I'm not up on the details of that project and
can not say how well it works at present.
As for Mac OS X I know that apple is working on a screen reader solution for
OS X, but don't know how far along that project is.
One thing I can say for sure at this point in time MS Windows is most likely
the most accessible environment for you at this time. Linux and Mac have not
caught up with Windows accessibility quite yet.



----- Original Message -----
From: "ELLIOTT, TIMOTHY" <tielliot umflint edu>
To: "Laporte, Leo" <webmaster leoville com>; "GNOME Accessibility"
<gnome-accessibility-list gnome org>; "GNOME Accessibility Development"
<Gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org>; "Norcross, James"
<norcross umflint edu>
Cc: "Grandma Judy" <knitist juno com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 4:28 PM
Subject: I need a computer with a friendly Unix-based user operating system!




Dear Sir My name is Tim Elliott. I am a third year student with
disabilities,attending the University of Michigan Flint majoring in
computer science. Michigan Rehabilitation Services(MRS) ( they are a
federal and state agency) purchased a Ultra Laptop Computer.
Model#N30W-14 with 500mgh and 128 megabytes of memory with 6 gigabytes
of hard drive space, four years ago for me to use. U of M is changing
over to a Unix-based operating system using iMac G4 computers. I am
requesting MRS to purchase me an Apple G4 Powerbook with Mac OS X
which is an Unix-based operating system. This computer would enable me
to run assistive software an on screen keyboard, screen reading, Math
Type 4, Scientific Notebook or similar software of these types., but
before they will purchase the computer , they need to find out if they
can download an Unix-based operating system off the Internet like
Linux and install on my laptop. They have spent 7 months in trying to
do this to no avail. What I want to know is, is this a practical
solution? Even if they find one on the Internet, would it run the
software I previously mentioned?

Please communicate with me asap because I need a computer with an user
friendly, Unix-based operating system by fall, when I go back to
school.




Sincerely Tim W Elliott

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