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

[Peter Korn <Peter Korn Sun COM>]

Hi Tim,

As Tom & Esther Ward note in their separate reply, accessibility in GNOME is 
still in development.  The GNOME On-screen keyboard is actually pretty mature 
at this point, and I as a person who is comfortable with cutting-edge stuff, I 
wouldn't hesitate to use it were I in need of it on a daily basis.

You mention below three things though that give me pause.  You say:

 1. That you want both an on-screen keyboard *and* a screen reader.
    Are you looking to use both of these at the same time?  Perhaps I
    might be able to give you better advice if I understood better the
    nature of your disability and access needs.

 2. Using a Macintosh as the hardware platform.  While Mac OS X is a
    UNIX OS, it doesn't use GNOME.  Enterprising engineers have built
    GNU/Linux and GNOME from source for this hardware platform, but it
    isn't for the faint of heart.  In fact, last week I saw Gnopernicus
    running on a Mac G4 laptop, but without speech working (he wasn't
    able to get that part right).  I do not suggest this combination
    for anyone but a very competent and experienced engineer.

 3. You say you want to use this with "Math Type 4", "Scientific Notebook",
    and other similar software.  The approach we are taking is a departure
    from the typical way accessibility has been done (though it is in fact
    the route that both Microsoft and Apple are taking in their next
    generation accessibility projects): applications must "opt-in" to
    accessibility.  Unless the software you are using does this, it won't
    work with the screen reader and most of the functionality of the on-screen
    keyboard won't work.  We've done much of the "opting-in" work already
    for the GTK+2 and Java/Swing graphical libraries (and the engineer I
    mentioned in #2 above is doing that work for KDE/Qt), so applications
    written using those libraries have a good chance of working.  But
    I don't believe that "Math Type 4" and "Scientific Notebook" are such
    applications.


Regards,

Peter Korn
Sun Accessibility team

ELLIOTT, TIMOTHY wrote:
>   
>
> 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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