[orca-list] My Experience with Ubuntu Mate

["D. A. H." <dhunt freedommail co>]

Hi, all!

Below are some notes, taken from my experience with installing this 
distro onto one of my laptop computers.  I offer them in the hope that 
you will find them useful. I invite others to add to them, critique 
them, whatever, as you see fit.


Cheers,


Dave  Hunt


For those wishing the stability, quality, security, familiarity, etc of 
ubuntu, but without the overhead of Unity or GNOME Shell, there is 
Ubuntu Mate.  http://ubuntu-mate.org
The mate (pronounced "mah-tay") desktop has the look, feel, and 
lightweight footprint of the old GNOME 2, but takes advantage of the 
latest in GTK.

Ubuntu Mate is available in i386 and x86-64 flavors, and is available in 
Ubuntu 14.04 (LTS) and 14.10 (latest STS) releases.

Once you've gotten the desired Ubuntu Mate live image and put it onto 
your usb or dvd, boot the live system.  There is no audible indication 
when the system is booted, but when it is, use 'ctrl+s' to toggle the 
screen reader on.  It will be focused in a dialogue, offering the 
options of installing or trying Ubuntu.  if you choose the 'try' option, 
wait a while (again, no audible indications here), then use 
'alt+super+s' to toggle orca on the desktop.  You can arrow around the 
group of icons presented, and though an icon will be selected, orca will 
report as unselected.  To get to the menu bar, use 'alt+f1'.  Across the 
top will be the menus:
Applications, Places, and System.  Use down arrow to read any of the 
menus, right/left to expand/collapse submenus; enter to start an 
application; escape to leave the menu system, and perform no action.

Ues 'alt+f2' to enter the 'run' dialogue, in which you can type the name 
of an application or folder.  Names typed into the dialogue will 
auto-complete.

You can cycle among open apps windoes with 'alt+tab' and 
'alt+shift+tab'.  Cycle among panels and desktop with 'alt+ctrl+tab' and 
'alt+ctrl+shift+tab'.

The top panel has icons for battery state, network connection chooser, 
volume indicator, clock, and some app launchers.  The bottom panel has 
the list of your running apps.

If you chose to install Ubuntu Mate, and you've started your new system, 
you can get the login greeter to talk, using 'f4'.  The first time you 
login as the new user, you may have to start the screen reader with 
'alt+super+s'.  I find that the talking login greeter will sometimes 
crash after I enter my password.  Your new system will try to use the 
network connection used for the install.

\In a new Ubuntu Mate installation, the notifications will not speak; 
install the package called notify-osd; they will speak, starting with 
next login.