Re: First Steps

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

Hi Ian

Welcome to the list!  Firstly I hope that someone on the list can 
provide you with enough specific information to enable you to install 
Linux+GNOME without any hitches.  Personally I don't track the Ubuntu 
distro mailing lists, so I don't know what specific issues people may 
have had with the install process there.

If you are still not confident after the replies you get, I hope that 
you will consider finding a Linux-savvy sighted person to assist, as a 
fall-back.  In a better world all of these things should be installable 
by all users, but as you point out the cost of a glitch in an OS install 
situation can be high.  If things go well, hopefully the reliability and 
safety of the install can be improved for everyone based on your 
experience. 

I am pretty sure that there is enough interest in VI-installable Ubuntu 
that if folks pool their expertise and approach the Ubuntu community, 
this issue could be solved for future releases.  I expect that what it 
would take is better communication between the Ubuntu distro team and 
some kind of organized testing of installation accessibility, possibly 
the test team could be volunteers; maybe someone else could donate a 
couple of machines for that purpose so that testers didn't have to live 
in fear of trashing their primary system.

Are there other folks on this list who are interested in working with 
Ubuntu to test this and other aspects of Ubuntu accessibility?

best regards and good luck,

Bill

Ian Pascoe wrote:

> Hi List
>
> I am a visually impaired person currently working on a Windows based PC and
> have been looking at getting a Linux distro on and working as a dual boot
> system.
>
> So far I have shied away from this as members of the LUG I belong to have
> had bad experiences using Live CDs when truying to set up a dual boot system
> - ie the distro attempts to either overwrite or remove Windows which is
> unacceptable; and they find that the custom install process gets too
> technical for them to easily deal with.
>
> I have thought about using the Ubunto (apologies for spelling) with Gnome
> accessability on it but this is one of the Live Distros that the LUG have
> had problems with.
>
> Can anyone recommend a suitable distro that comes with all the basic
> accessability that is not harmfull to existing Windoes installations?  I
> have received good reports about the Ubunto main stream distro on Linux only
> machines and would like this but am quite wary as mentioned above.
>
> I use Windoes XP Home SP 2 and have a 20Gb un-formatted partition available
> for the distro to load into.  Accessability wise I definately need screen
> enhancements ie colour inversion and full screen magnification, and speech
> interface but interfaces with braille displays are not needed at the moment.
>
> Thanks for your help and advice in advance
>
> Ian
>  
>
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