GNOME.org
 

Re: [orca-list] trying to use Orca full-time, have some questions


Hi Peter,
Yes it would be realy great if you send me the past email off list.
I am going to attempt an arch installation and if I like it I will switch full time. 
I am a programmer myself doing programming mostly in Python and Java.
I use eclipse as my IDE.
And I have been using Ubuntu with Unity 2d for more than 18 months.
what I have liked about the said desktop is it's side pain (they call it launcher) and the heads up display feature. 
I liked the fact that I can add or remove any applications in the launcher.
and I liked the super + numbers option to open any software in the launcher.
Now in comparison to all these features, can you tell me how comfortable i can be with Gnome shell 3.10? For example with Unity, I get to the list of favorite applications by just pressing alt + f1. I have home, Firefox, Libre office Writer ... even Orca for that matter on 7th position. So i boot my machine and then after login just press super + 7 to start orca. 
I also see that I can access any other application from the dash bar.
Now tell me is there some similar things in Gnome shell 3.10 or some thing even better? 
What about the top panel where we get wifi icon, battry icon, volume etc?
I have asked all these questions to know how comfortable I will feel if I decide to shift to Gnome 3.10. And lastly given that Gnome shell 3.10 really feature rich and very accessible, do send me the docs for setting up arch so that I too can get the latest stable Orca and run the same. 
Will await your valued email.
Happy hacking.
Krishnakant.

On 11/22/2013 04:23 AM, Peter Vágner wrote:

Hello,
I think installing vanilla gnome 3.10 or any other future version should be painless with arch linux and most likelly with other distros too. And currently this is also the best graphical enviromment in terms of accessibility. At least it's my feeling. Hopefully you won't see this as me being rude but recently perhaps a few weeks ago I have discussed how I have installed arch linux, xfce and some bits on gnome. What I also like about this process is that you will be doing 98 percent of the same things a sighted person would likelly do while installing the system plus you will add a few extra steps into the whole process in order to bring accessibility. However this is not complicated at all. 
If you like I can resend the emails from the archives if you like.
Again regarding offline install of packages you will do exactly what a sighted peers are doing. I am afraid installing the system is not possible without internet connection at least I was unable to find a way up to now. I did not make extensive search on this though. Once the system is installed you don't need internet connection in order to update or install additional packages. Having internet connectivity is more comfortable however you can use another PC with internet connectivity to download lists of packages and then move the updated lists to a machine without the internet connection. You would then generate the list of needed packages you can retrieve and again use help from another machine bring that into the system without internet connectivity. Here is an article on all this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Offline_Installation_of_Packages 

Greetings

Peter





On 21.11.2013 19:56, Krishnakant Mane wrote:

HI Peter,
I am really impressed.
I haven't used windows for last 6 years myself.
Well I am very very keen on setting up arch on my thinkpad.
It is an old machine with 2 gb ram and core 2 processor.

I have another hp laptop with 6 gb ram and i5 processor.
But I am running Ubuntu 12.04 on it and pretty happy.
Now I wish to know if I setup Arch on my Thinkpad, what best gnome or gnome shell version do you recommend? 
Should I go for 3.10 and what else I should setup?
I use Libre office 4.1 and I use pidgin as well.
Of course I am also interested to have some good accessibility for pdf files. 
And yes, I do use Thunderbird for my emails.
Lastly, please don't asume that I am stuck with choosing gnome shell 3.8 or what ever. If there are other desktops which might work well with Orca on a 2 gb ram machine, I will be glad to test it. Can you please email me off list to give me instructions on getting talking arch and how I can setup the entire thing? Further more, I also wish to download what ever software repo offline so that I don't need internet all the time for getting softwares. 
Happy hacking.
Krishnakant.

On 11/21/2013 11:23 PM, Peter Vágner wrote:

Hello,
Perhaps someone can remember my story but I'll try to repeat it here with some ideas added.
As a matter of my preference to open source software I was trying to switch to linux ever since I have got my own desktop computer what has all started at about the begining of 2006. First I was experiencing with debian, trying console apps, then trying out emac and emacspeak and speechd-l. It is powerfull enviromment even today but I was not flexible enough to learn it properly and I was unable to get used to it full time. Then my next attempt was as I was graduating at the university. At that time I was using ubuntu 8.04. I was able to get the gnome desktop to work reasonably well however I was quite shocked that the performance is not as responsive than using NVDA on Windows. Handling large folder in nautilus, large lists of emails in Thunderbird and even list of contacts in pidgin was causing serious issues. While it was usable to a certain extend I can't say I was comfortable with that. Then my next serious round of testing was with ubuntu 10.04. Currently I can't say whether I had not enough powerfull computer at that time or my skills were too limited I have only used that system occassionally to test things, sometimes browse the web and also for watching TV, ripping and reencoding TV shows etc. This worked pretty well and it helped me to earn some more experience with linux in general. And my final switch to linux started at the begining of july 2012 by installing ubuntu 12.04 to my brand new laptop. Originally I was dual booting with Windows but as I was more and more happy with the newly installed system I have found my-self only occassionally booting to windows. As the situation got reversed I became more and more curious and I have installed arch linux and started using it on december 6th 2012. Now I am daily running arch with testing repositories disabled. I have never experienced such an issue with the rolling release cycle that my machine became not bootable and I experienced only minor issues which were easy to solve after reading arch linux wiki, forums or googling a bit. For some 6 months I haven't booted to windows and since I am running arch linux I am not using ubuntu either.
So If you find your self as a power user of any kind with at least reasonable knowledge you need to install a system of your choice and adapt it to your needs. You may like to test ubuntu, vinux, sonar whatewer but if this is not enough for you keep exploring and if you like you may slowly then move to arch, manjaro even gentoo. I know installing latest a11y stack into a ubuntu 12.04 system won't work with reasonable efforts but with current version of ubuntu you can install latest development stuff easily the same way you can do with arch, with fedora and with others. There are just some additional distro specific things you need to learn in order to be able to do that with a distro of your choice. If you are able to dedicate quite a lot of time to research what distro is better and also if you have enough time to discuss all these matters on a mailing list you will for sure have that little time to upgrade your rolling release based OS even if there might be some minor unexpected issues. You don't have to do this each day. It's enough to do this once, twice or even four times a month. It's all up to you and this is one of the strongest points I currently like about my setup. I can do what I want with it and I have got excelent documentation and community support. 

Greetings

Peter

On 21.11.2013 17:10, Krishnakant Mane wrote:

HI Alex,
Can you give me some more inputs on this.
I wish to try gnome shell 3.10 and my first question is which distro.
Secondly, can it be used for daily full time purpose?
I am still stuck with Unity 2d and it is kind of good enough.
If you say gnome shell 3.10 is even better, then I am tempted to try it out. 
Happy hacking.
Krishnakant.
On 11/21/2013 09:29 PM, Alex Midence wrote:

With Gnome 3.10, I believe Gnome Shell has surpassed Unity 2d for
accessibility.  I switched from Unity 2d to Gnome 3.4 and found it
comparable.  I then saw 3.8 and saw great improvement. 3.10 with its
improvements is even better and, I think, outstrips Unity 2d in areas like pdf accessibility and hotkeys to navigate the different areas of the desktop system. With all the Orca improvements being backported to 3.10 from the 3.11 refactoring Joannie is doing, I can't imagine using 12.04 right now 
with its outdated a11y stack.

Just my 2 cents,
Alex M

-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of
Krishnakant Mane
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 3:33 AM
To: Julius Charles Serrano; orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] trying to use Orca full-time, have some questions 

So afterall Vinux is based on the same version.
I am personally using Ubuntu 12.04 and perhaps will do so till the spring of 
2014.
I hope then by now at least gnome shell will have more accessibility and we 
will get to do a lot with it.
Happy hacking.
Krishnakant.

On 11/21/2013 02:50 PM, Julius Charles Serrano wrote:
Thank you to everyone who has answered my questions on-list and off-list. 

I truly appreciate it.

I've also done some reading and asking around, and I'm finding that
Ubuntu 12.04 (not sure of the exact version number, will confirm it)
could be my best bet.

Julius
_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out
how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to 
help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp



_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html 
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp
[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]