Re: [orca-list] need some review on orca with debian.

[Michael Whapples <mwhapples aim com>]

I think there is really two parts to your question, how well orca works 
and how good the technical support/user support is for the distro (this 
latter bit I am getting from your comment about opensolaris).

I personally have had no trouble with orca on debian, and for me I feel 
debian is a good choice. Debian may or may not be the right choice for 
the use you are asking about, here are some of my thoughts why I choose 
debian rather than ubuntu (some of these may apply in the same way or 
you may come to a different answer whether it is good or bad for each of 
these points, I am putting it here just for information).

Debian is very much about letting the user choose what they want, there 
is little where the default system says certain things should be 
installed. As an example of this I know some ubuntu users have had 
problems with pulseaudio and gnome-speech. Pulseaudio can be removed 
from ubuntu but this starts going into modifying the system and some 
people here (look back in the archives) have indicated that upgrades can 
lead to pulseaudio returning (I don't know whether it is true or not or 
if there is an alternative way which may not lead to this happening). 
Also should that computer need ubuntu reinstalling then you need to go 
through altering the system again unless you have prepared a custom 
installation CD. Compared to that debian comes with ALSA by default and 
works out of the box with gnome-speech for me. As a note: opensolaris 
audio seems to work well out of the box, the only main issue might be 
having supported sound cards (they aren't rare but more limited than the 
sound cards supported in linux).

Debian has less emphasis on the GUI desktop environment than ubuntu. 
This means more documents online for debian tell you how to do stuff 
from the command line. For me this is a good thing as I have come from a 
command line angle in linux and so don't mind or even prefer altering 
configuration files by hand. Debian probably has all of the GUI 
configuration tools needed but you will find less howtos for those 
specifically aimed at debian. Ubuntu does aim itself for GUI desktop 
users more and so has a good number of docs for using GUI tools to 
configure it. If there is less "technically knowledgeable people" on 
hand for helping solve any issues or configure systems then they may be 
more comfortable with GUI configuration and value ubuntu's docs.

Debian seems to trail a little in gnome versions. Until recently it was 
using gnome 2.22 and is in the process of moving to gnome 2.24 (I don't 
think it is complete yet). However gnome 2.26 is out and other distros 
are moving towards that. Ubuntu I believe does keep more up to date with 
gnome. Some suggest debian trails because it tries to maintain stability 
(I have had very little trouble in that respect with debian), but this 
comes at the expense of missing out on some of the latest features and I 
feel gnome accessibility is moving along at quite a pace.

Hope that gives you some things to consider. Also have you looked at 
distros like fedora and opensuse. I haven't tried either of them but I 
know they are both very popular and people on this list have mentioned 
using them.

Michael Whapples
On 23/12/42 19:59, Krishnakant wrote:
> hi,
> On Sat, 2009-04-04 at 16:25 +1100, Jason White wrote:
>    
> > Krishnakant<hackingkk gmail com>  wrote:
> >
> >      
> > > But all in all, I want to know if some one on the list is successfully
> > > running orca with debian?
> > >        
> > Yes.
> >      
> > >        
> Does this work out-of-the-box?
> I have off late herd that debian and orca had some problems?
>    
> > > What version of  orca is packed with the latest debian 5 distro?
> > >        
> > In the Unstable repository we have 2.24.4.
> >
> >      
> ah, that means, I will have to use the unstable repo.
>
> So are there any more problems sighted by others in this regard?
> I am thinking of installing debian on a couple of machines because it is
> known to be rock solid and these machines are supposed to go to some
> rural parts of india where technical support is not available.
>
>
>
> Infact I am lonching a major campaign in the western states of
> Maharashtra and Madhya pradesh of India to wipe out all proprietory
> stuff and give the blind people the best thing they can use which is
> beyond all doubts orca.
> This project would involve more than 3000 computers which will be
> installed in high schools and offices where blind people work.
>
> We already have the funds from the government to do this because
> decisions have been already taken to shift every thing to free software
> and Blind people should not be left out.
>
> I am even going to consider open solaris, but some how, debian and
> Ubuntu keep coming to my mind due to their perfect blending of
> accessibility and a wide user base to support it.
>
> happy hacking.
> Krishnakant.
>
>
>
>
>