GNOME.org
 

Re: [orca-list] Various questions about Orca and the linux world

Accessibility in mainstream distributions has indeed come a long way.  I am thinking of taking some formal 
Linux training and it is good to know that I'll quite likely have an accessible experience from the get-go 
without having to bring my machine.  If your goal is to be able to use Linux in the commercial world, you 
will want to familiarize yourself with Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu.  Of these, Ubuntu is free to download and 
install with  Suse and Redhat having free sister distros like Open suse and Fedora respectively.  Debian is 
also one to learn though, sadly, you don't see it much in commercial contexts for some reason.  I can't 
imagine why other than lack of commercial support.  It's rock steady and very easy to customize.  

Alex M



-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of José Vilmar Estácio de Souza
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2014 9:06 AM
To: Fernando Botelho F123 org; Krishnakant Mane; Øyvind Lode; orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] Various questions about Orca and the linux world


Just for the record:

When I'm going to do some training, take my laptop to participate in the development of exercises.
One day I discovered that one of the training which I attended used laptops with ubuntu installed.

I pressed alt f2, typed orca, pressed enter and voila, no longer needed to take my laptop to the training.


On 10/13/2014 10:41 AM, Fernando Botelho wrote:

The same is true with Vinux and F123. For you to find an environment
really designed for exclusive use by the blind, you would have to be
using Emacspeak. Even then, it is a bit of a judgement call. In any
case, F123, Sonar, Vinux, etc, all have GUI interfaces and are based on
generic linux distros.

Fernando


On 10/13/2014 10:28 AM, Krishnakant Mane wrote:


Just one quick comment,
Sonar although designed for blind people, is actually based off of
manjaro which is a general purpose distro.
It just has some extra features needed by blind people, so it is not
really a totally custom made distro, just that some additional things
are there.
happy hacking.
Krishnakant.On 10/13/2014 05:14 PM, Øyvind Lode wrote:

You don't need a Braille display to install Debian.
Download the net install image and boot it up.
It will beep when at the boot prompt and at this point press "s" and
hit enter.
You will now be able to install Debian using Speakup using software
speech via eSpeak/eSpeakup.
Speakup with software speech will start automatically when your new
installation boots up.
I don't use a graphical desktop, so I cant answer these questions.
But I'm considering trying out Linux as a desktop system at some point.

-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of
Vincenzo Rubano
Sent: 13. oktober 2014 12:15
To: orca-list gnome org
Subject: [orca-list] Various questions about Orca and the linux world

Hi all,

my name is Vincenzo and I am a blind Italian computer science
student. Looking for various information about linux, I came across
this list and I decided to subscribe.

Starting from this year, I’ll need to use linux for various projects
at university; however, before beginning to test various distros, I’d
like to ask you some questions. I am a novice in the linux world. I
only have experience with Mac OS X (my primary system) and Windows.

1. First off, I was wondering wether anyone managed to get any linux
distro with AT features enabled working on a single-board computer,
like the Raspberry P or the Banana-p. Was the machine usable, or did
it have too much latency/was it too slow to let you be productive?

2. Searching for information, I came across two distros that claims
to be designed with accessibility in mind: Vinux and Sonar. Honestly,
I noticed that these distros are popular only among blind users and
could be considered something like a custom product for blind people.
Since I don’t like this philosophy, I was wondering wether anyone had
experience with “mainstream” linux distros and could recommend me
what distro to start with.

3. Since my classmates and professors at university are going to use
Debian, I’d like to know wether anyone knows what the most critical
accessibility issues in Debian are and if there are some workarounds
to bypass them. For instance, I read that Debian can be installed by
a blind user on his own only if he has a USB Braille Display
plugged-in during the first boot, so that Debian can enable Brltty
and switch automatically to the text-based installation. However, I
learnt that orca on this distro must be downloaded separately after
the installation. Is that correct?

4. In some pages on the Vinux website, I read that Orca works better
with Speech dispatcher than with Gnome speech (which is the default
speech engine in Gnome, if I understood correctly). Can you confirm
that? If so, how hard switch from Gnome Speech to speech dispatcher is?

5. From what I’ve understood, the most critical points to get an
accessible GUI in a distro are the login manager and the window
manager. Do you have any recommendations about which ones to pick/avoid?

6. Last but not least, do you know wether Orca works properly with
gnome-terminal? If not, is there any alternative to make it
accessible for a blind user?

Thank you in advance for your help. Sorry for asking so much
questions, but I’d like to make productive tests instead of wasting
time on something someone else already figured out. I do believe that
putting together all the information we have it could be even easier
to communicate our issues with mainstream distro maintainers and,
maybe, get their interest in fixing them.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Cheers

Vincenzo.
_______________________________________________
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


_______________________________________________
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


-- 
{}S José Vilmar Estácio de Souza
_______________________________________________
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]