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Re: [orca-list] about the best distro to a newbie and so on

This is good, and of course things will not be the same for all users on all systems. 
I had less restart mailase with nvda than I had when I first used a modern OS/computer, winXP-pro with jaws 8 
6 years ago. 
I used to have to restart orca all the time back in gnome2 days, and I stopped using jaws for any 
web-browsing for the same thing. 
Orca could just berestarted, as could NVDA, but sometimes jaws had taken down a web-browser along with it, or 
visaversa, most annoying. 
In my limited testing of window-eyes it kept running, but I would need to spend a lot more time with it to 
judge where it's good, bad and or terrible.
I'm not at all trying to say that any OS/distro is for everyone, even everyone who can choose more or less 
freely, nor bashing any software in my heart 
between the lines here. 
One more comment though, to really see where LInux shines you do need to do a bit of tweaking. 
I doubt any windows configuration I could come up with would  give the level of performance and flexability 
that  I achieved with fluxbox and a few 
scripts for my atom using netbook with 1GB of RAM, but running Unity out of the box is a bust, more options, 
more chance to get something really good, 
or not so practical.
  

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 12:01:57AM +0100, Mike Ray wrote:


Just to comment on the note about restarting Windows screen-readers.  I
don't remember the last time I had to restart NVDA.  And I use Windows a
lot because I have almost two decades invested in programming for the
Win32 API professionally.



On 15/10/2014 23:51, B. Henry wrote:

Vinux5 nightly builds are certainly usable, but there is still some work to do, as says Debian, it will 
be released when it is ready. 
I disagree with the statement that Linux is hard to use. It can be, but several distros at least are not. 
Is there more that can be done to make 
personalizing configuration even easier, yes. This includes a couple things like either making complete 
meta packages or package groups that would get 
folks all the non-free codecs they are likely to use with one quick click or command, or making a simple 
script to grabb all the packages for this in 
one fell swoop. 
The only other thing that stands out to me is when it comes to hardware support for some machines that 
depend on proprietary drivers, but if one uses 
machines known for having good hardware support in Linux this becomes a non issue. 
Chromebooks are certainly popular because they are inexpensive, but they do have their limitations that 
make them unsuitable for many. 
Macs are way out of the question for many ppl because of their price, and while I'm not going to check on 
stats now they are unlikely to ever lead sales 
when compared to other machines, but if you put them up against any single company they may do well as 
far as sales go. Also remember there are very few 
models, so even a single company probably has more options than apple, so again, model to model they may 
do well, but apple desk and lap tops had 6.8 
percent of the world market in september, linux less than 2%, so even win8 has a larger market share than 
macintosh.
I would be willing to put most Linux desktops up against windows, not sure about macs as I've never used 
them as far as how long it would take a new 
user to be more or less comfortable using them. If you give a mac user a windows box, or visaversa 
usually the new OS looks/feels hard, or at least 
harder, same for many with browsers or email clients for that matter. 
Now arch-linux, Gentoo,  and many other distros are not something for the average computer-user, sighted 
or blind to start out on, and many will never 
care to learn what they need to know to configure them,and sure one can just follow instructions, but 
folks don't want to do that just to start using 
their computer. 
That being said, even those distros could be fine if they came preinstalled. 
I'm not sure whichcmainstream companies offer pre-installed linux this year, but even when they do it's 
not in stores, you have to order a LInux 
machine. Specialty OEMs that sell only Linux boxes generally are not very competitive compared with 
companies like HP, Dell or Lenovo, and even when 
they are this does not take in to account that one can buy machines for oh so much less than list price, 
if not daily, at least on sale. 
Lenovo seems to be gaining market share, and they usually make fine machines with good to great Linux 
support for their hardware. 
There's really little that the Linux community can do to encourage more support that I can think of other 
than buying from manufacturers that offer 
pre-installed Linux. 
(and of course writing drivers and such if they can)
It appears that graphics support is improving, with at least one major maker now contributing to the 
Kernel. 
Only a very few distros have the pull, or potential pull to actually get their OS on devices, bvut untill 
there's demand this will continue to be at 
best only a tiny influance on the market. It's a catch22. Linux popularity won't grow until it's more 
widely available, and it is unlikely to become 
more widely available until it's more popular. 
Last comment I will make is that Orca's greatly improved firefox support, and slow but steady progress in 
chromvox has gotten Linux to the point where I 
can comfortably recommend it to just about anyone not forced to use another OS because their jobs require 
the use of proprietary software that only 
comes on another OS, or their jobs just obligate everyone to use a particular OS. 
I got in to Linux when accessibility was just good enough to make it viable for someone like me who could 
pick and choose their applications, had no 
special needs, and could even aford to take a bit longer to do some tasks. I had the time and interest to 
learn how to customize things to 
counterbalance some of Linux's accessibility defficiencies. Now even with out serious optimizing of 
configurations, scripting and so forth a lot of 
things work great in the GUI. Add the stuff I can do as a "power-user"...lol, using the commandline a 
lot, and some of that scripting and other 
customization and I can get a lot done more comfortably, and just as fast if not faster compared to 
windows with out straining my brain. 
In windows you have win7 or 8, but in Linux you have several good desktop choices, and at least two that 
are really accessible out of the box now, a few 
more that may meet the needs of folks who are willing to work at things a bit, so I honestly can't say 
that Windows is more usable for the average 
person any more. I have to restart windows screenreaders with some frequency, or at least did last year 
when I still used windows enough to notice such 
things, Orca and speakup, pretty much never. 
Then there are all the other reasons both practical and philisophical to choose Linux.
--
B.H.
  

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:58:51PM -0700, Victor Lawrence wrote:

I'm glad to know that F123 is so accessible and user-friendly.  Vinux
is great, but I'm very anxious for Vinux 5 to be released.

I'll have to try F123 as it sounds like it has some very nice features.

The main criticism of Linux in general is that one must be very tech
savvy to use it.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again!  The
average computer user won't ever be interested in Linux if he/or she
finds it hard to use.  People are already frustrated with Windows!
I've read that Macs and Chrome Books are leading computer sales
lately.  At least they have been with the back to school crowd.

VictorOn 10/11/14, B. Henry <burt1iband gmail com> wrote:

Let me say that I've not tried F123's latest release yet. That being said
this project is very professional, and based in Brazil!
I have tried an older F123, and you could not have asked for something more
friendly to new users. It's not just for Linux novices of course, and extra

help messages can be turned off.
This is not the only distro that could be good for a new to Linux
screenreader using person though.
I don't think sonar would be better for you as it's also based on manjaro,
but there's an exception, the sonar mate spin. Mate may make it on to F123
in
the future. If you want mate, you could put it on F123 pretty easily also.
If you do not want an arch family distro, (in case you do not know manjaro
and hence F123 or sonar are  derived from arch-linux), there are other
alternative.
Vinux is designed to be friendly to folks new to Linux, or computers.
Vinux4, the latest official release is made from Ubuntu 12.04, and you can
update
to a newer kernel if you like.  This is a very good release that uses Unity
as the desktop. Vinux5 is on the way, but it will be released when it's
ready, probably not that far off, but no firm date is set for it's release.
There are Vinux5 nightly images available which run well and are promising.

I'm not a big fan of the current state of unity myself as it has some
accessibility weaknesses. YOu could put mate on it and get good
accessibility, or
use Ubuntu mate that has just come out. I've also not tried Ubuntu mate, but
think it's probably very nice for orca users. You can choose installation
language for Vinux5 nightly builds or Ubuntu it self, so should be fine as
far as translations go.
DDDDDDebian needs a bit more work than Ubuntu for most users, but is an
option as well.
I use arch more than anything else currently myself, but do not recommend
Arch to a novice, many little things need to be done as one does most
configuration pretty much from scratch, and even basic installation requires
steps that a novice will perhaps be a bit overwhelmed by at first glance.
It's just about following instructions carefully in most cases, but you are
more likely to run in to situations where a bit more research and or trial
and error will be required, and there are just too many decissions to make
that someone new to Linux will have a hard time making in an educated manner

for me to feel comfortable about recommending it.
I hear paldo is easy for novices to setup, and there are podcasts, but I do
not know about details, nor about translations.
So, F123, or Vinux, or probably Ubuntu-mate would be my suggestions for most
users in situations like yours.
--
B.H.


On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 01:28:46PM -0300, Felipe V. Ramos wrote:


Hello all,

Well, although I knew Linux for around six year and use a little, now I'm
really using more and  thinking about change from windows to linux.

But first I have some questions.

Is there any recommended distro to newbies, mainly with translation to
brasilian portuguese?

If there is not, what the best distro/version to use? I have here ubuntu
but
I think it's a 13.x, but the orca is in the 3.10 version.

I'm a science computation student and we begin to really use linux, but
I'm
having many problems. I think that use a old version of orca can be the
worst, hahaha.

Thank you all!
[]s
Felipe
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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




-- 
Michael A. Ray
Analyst/Programmer
Witley, Surrey, South-east UK

The box said: 'install Windows XP, 7 or better'. So I installed Linux

Interested in accessibility on the Raspberry Pi?
Visit: http://www.raspberryvi.org/
From where you can join our mailing list for visually-impaired Pi hackers
_______________________________________________
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
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