Re: [orca-list] What distro would people like me to cover in some audio walkthroughs

[Anthony Sales <tony sales rncb ac uk>]

Hi Michael,

I think the decision needs to be based on the kind of audience you are aiming at. If you are aiming at 
complete newbies to Linux then Arch or Gentoo will send them running to the hills, whereas if you are aiming 
it at intermediate/advanced users then they won't want to hear about Ubuntu or Opensolaris, because the 
process is relatively simple once you know how. So my suggestion would to be to do two distros. One which 
will be accessible to newbies and one which will appeal to more advanced users. I personally would like to 
know how to get an accessible arch system up and running and have failed twice even as a sighted user. I 
particularly like the idea of a rolling release. And I understand why you wouldn't want to focus on Vinux as 
it is supposed to be fairly idiot proof. I also agree that it would be great to have a mainstream distro that 
was accessible and easy to use for newbies, but in the meantime for the technically incompetent there is 
Vinux. I have spent a lot of time looking at the mainstream distros such as Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora, 
Mandriva etc and they all have a few show-stopping accessibility issues if you are a beginner, so I think 
picking one of these with the necessary fixes or workarounds would be valuable for newbies coming to Linux 
for the first time, then you could offer them a choice of a mainstream distro or a more advanced one! I look 
forward to hearing the audio walkthroughs.

drbongo



-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Michael Whapples
Sent: 02 March 2010 15:25
To: Orca-list
Subject: [orca-list] What distro would people like me to cover in some audio walkthroughs

Hello,
As my GRML install has become old I think its time for some new audio 
walkthroughs from me. I have to say after some use of GRML on HD I don't 
know whether I would advise it for HD installations (NOTE: GRML is an 
excellent liveCD and I would recommend it for text based LiveCD work eg. 
system recovery, etc). In fact look at my comments on ArchLinux for an 
interesting use I may put GRML to.

This means I am now looking at what other distribution to use for the 
audio walkthroughs. Has anyone any suggestions of which they would like 
to be done. Below you will find some notes on what I have looked at and 
views, etc, I would suggest reading that before suggesting a distro to 
be covered.

I thought I had managed to reach a decision on what distribution I would 
use for some orca audio walkthroughs but hit a bit of a unexpected 
problem with installing fedora from the liveCD, the "first boot" 
application which is certainly inaccessible with no obvious work around 
(NOTE: the speakup modified fedora won't do, I will be installing it on 
a system already with windows XP on the disk and the text installer 
would clear the whole disk).

An alternative I had been considering is OpenSolaris, regardless of my 
view of oracle there currently is a technical show stopper for me with 
it as on the computer I intend to use X won't start on the latest 
development builds (I suspect its the intel graphics issues which were 
introduced around b130). I believe they intend to fix the issue with 
intel graphics by the release, however that's getting quite close. If it 
can be fixed by the release then it is back in the list of choices.

Another one I have given serious consideration is ArchLinux. This takes 
a very different approach to the others I am considering, although it 
probably fits better with my personal views, build up the system the way 
you want rather than rip apart a large default system and fight it to 
work the way you want. While I like build it up approaches, I am 
concerned whether it works for a audio walkthrough as the system can 
have so many possible configurations. My other concern is how well 
supported ArchLinux is, by this I mean third party software (an example 
would be skype don't make a package for it, but this skype example 
doesn't work fully as there are skype packages in the community 
repository). Actually that skype example probably demonstrates that my 
concern may not be real, there seems to be enough software in the 
repositories for most (if not all) general desktop usage.

To install ArchLinux I probably will do an install using the GRML 
LiveCD, yes its possible, reason why, its a more full system to be 
working with while installing (eg. nice handy applications like 
grml-network to configure your network, etc).

Now for the distros I ruled out fairly early on:
* OpenSuse: They seem to go their own way for things with no clear 
reason (eg. SBL instead of brltty (SBL lacks for me as it doesn't seem 
to support USB Braille displays whereas brltty has had support for USB 
for years), gnome's menus (why do they make that odd menu/application to 
replace the standard gnome ones, it just makes it unfamiliar), etc).
* Debian: I am saying this a bit reluctantly, but essentially the 
problem seems to be stable too old, testing and unstable too unreliable 
for the step by step nature of an audio walkthrough.
* Ubuntu: Just don't like it, too many reasons really to list.
* Slackware: While installation can be done with speakup, there is no 
software speech option for install and I don't have the resources to 
provide an espeakup enabled slackware install CD. Also possible issues 
with installing gnome as you need a third party gnome distribution but 
this is minor compared to the install issue.
* Gentoo: While a nice idea the compile from source thing gets to you 
after a time, too slow to install/upgrade packages for little gain in 
running the system.
* Vinux: Don't really believe in the idea of specially developed 
systems, I am sure that accessibility can be well integrated into 
mainstream distros (OpenSolaris is an example where it has been done 
well). I believe the route of educating on accessibility is better in 
the long term, if distros don't know about the accessibility concerns 
they may do something which makes your adapting task much harder in the 
future without even realising the impact of their decision.

OK, enough from me, now for your suggestions.

Michael Whapples
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