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Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility

Good points, Vincenzo.  However, for most basic use cases i.e. intermediate word processing, standard e-mail 
uses, browsing the web and listening to music, Linux works fine.  Obviously, it is not as accessible as 
Windows or something like IOS but it is quite comparable.  I'll not deny that it has its flaws in the ways 
bugs related to it get fixed but, overall, I would never say that accessibility on the Linux platform is 
regressing or dying out.  

Keep in mind that I don't have multiple complex e-mail boxes  with complicated folder structures on my Linux 
box. For that, I do use Windows as Outlook does a good enough job for it and that's the sort of thing I have 
to worry about at work not at home.  As for complex formatting on documents, I'm not too worried about word 
processing in Libreoffice not supporting some of that because of the prevalence of LaTEx which offers 
extremely complex formatting features using highly accessible text editors which can output stuff that is far 
superior in appearance to anything most blind people can manage in a word processor such as kerning and 
ligatures, justification and widow spacing.  The same goes for complex tables, captions, boxes and other 
desktop publishing-type features.  But, for basic word processing such as memos, letters, job aids, how-to's, 
class homework  and the like, Libreoffice is quite decently accessible.  Not sure what issues you were having 
with Calc but, there are those on this list that rely heavily on it for their work on a daily basis who find 
it quite usable.  I do have to agree with you on Impress being very poorly supported since PowerPoint in the 
Windows world does have far superior accessibility.  You can work with it to a point though.  I speak from 
personal experience as, back in 2010, what brought me to Linux is that I needs something to read PowerPoints 
produced by a college professor but didn't want to cough up money for Microsoft office on my home pc.  Enter 
Linux via Vinux 3.0 (an amazing distro at the time), and I was able to do my work.  I can't address Math and 
Base because I don't use them.

I've had audio troubles in the past but that had more to do with how I had Pulse audio configured than 
anything related to Orca or speech dispatcher.  I'll grant you that it gets temperamental when you deviate 
from using e-speak but, that doesn't bother me because I am fine with using e-speak.  The minor issue I have 
had is a crackle which I hear in x with Orca when I come back from the console using Speakup.  I usually 
resolve it by opening a terminal and doing an spd-conf and taking it to where I can kill all sessions of and 
restart speech dispatcher.  Then, I do an alt f2 and perform an orca --replace which makes all well.  I 
haven't had to resort to my braille display or my sighted wife for much of anything with Linux in a long 
time.  


Again, I won't say all of us can't come up with gripes here and there with stuff we'd like Linux to do better 
accessibility-wise but I'm quite certain most will agree that Linux is a very viable accessible solution for 
someone and can be used to be productive in a work environment.  I also think most around here will agree 
that the trend is progressive and not regressive on accessibility.  

Alex M

-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Vincenzo Rubano
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 2:02 PM
To: Keith Hinton
Cc: orca-list
Subject: Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility

Hi Keith,

I know this message will make some people angry, but I want to share my point of view on linux accessibility. 
This came out rather long, so enjoy a cup of coffee while reading. ;)

First off, when talking about linux accessibility I like to clarify what I think is an important aspect: 
fragmentation is a problem for accessibility. Since every piece of software can be configured with different 
options/different library versions/different parameters and each distribution can make a lot of decisions on 
these aspects, it’s hard to say what’s accessible and what is not. As you can see, there are too many 
variables to consider. Too many for my tastes…

This being said, we have to distinguish between command line accessibility and GUI accessibility. If we talk 
about command line, we’re in a great situation. Just choose a kernel which is optimally configured for 
speakup (i.e. the debian kernel starting from version 3.2 or the Talking Arch one are two examples that I’ve 
used). If we talk about GUI, well, that’s another story…

The only “accessible” desktops out of the box are Gnome and Mate. Please note the quotes wrapping the 
“accessible” word, their meanings will be clearer after the lines below.
Gnome works, but there are some areas of the Gnome-Shell that are completely inaccessible for Orca. Gnome 
Control Center has unlabeled controls scattered here and there with some of them being not usable at all and 
Gnome Tweak Tool has the same issues plus a few focus-related ones. Evolution, the default mail client 
included in Gnome, is completely inaccessible (1). There are other Gnome pieces that are not accessible, but 
my memory does not recall their names. Tested with Gnome 3.14.3 and Orca 3.14.3.
Mate is a Gnome 2 fork. It is accessible, if you mind not having access to most of the applets (i.e. the 
applet to control wifi connections) and having unreliable multiple file selection due to Orca not announcing 
properly when an item is selected or not. Add a few other issues here and there and that’s the Mate 
situation. Tested with Mate 1.8.* and Orca 3.14.3.

Libreoffice/openoffice are the only complete office suites for linux. Saying that they’re accessible is 
really an abuse of the word, though. Libreoffice Writer can be used to some degree, but if you need to have 
complex formatting, multiple tables with many rows and columns and form controls embedded in your document, 
then be prepared to a lot of accessibility issues. And remember that you won’t be able to use structural 
navigation within LibreOffice documents due to a Libreoffice bug sitting in their queue for years. Impress, 
Calc, Base and Math have even more severe and critical accessibility issues that make them far from being 
usable if you’re blind. Tested with Libreoffice 4.3.* and 4.4.* with Orca 3.14.3. Notice that LibreOffice 
seems to run a little bit better under Debian than under Ubuntu, but don’t ask me the reason why.

The only decent way to browse the Web with orca is using Firefox. There’s not too much to complain about 
that, if you don’t mind having a lot of troubles with complex applications such as webmails and with websites 
that often refresh the page via ajax. Also, make sure to enable the Orca configuration option to show one 
control for each line in a web page, otherwise you’ll have a lot of latency whenever you get to a line with 
more than 10 controls (i.e. 10 radio buttons). (2)

Let’s spend some words on the Speech Dispatcher/Alsa/PulseAudio thing. Wow, too many parties involved, don’t 
you think so? Anyways, I’ve always had two issues:
1. From the SpeechDispatcher configuration, enable a module which is not present in SpeechDispatcher (i.e 
module for Pico under a Debian installation). Restart the SpeechDispatcher service and… Voilà, no speech at 
all! And no way to recover, unless you can remotely access your machine or you have a Braille display or 
sighted assistance to rely on. Tested with Debian Wheezy/Jessie.
2. While the computer is of, plug in your headsets. Turn on the computer. Unplug the headsets: you would 
expect audio to come from your laptop speakers, but you won’t get audio output at all. Plug in again your 
headsets and… Audio is there. Tested under Debian Wheezy/Jessie and Ubuntu-Mate 14.04.

Finally, let me spend some words on development. Accessibility bugs that can be fixed/worked around in Orca 
get fixed rather quickly, but the problem is that those fixes get to end users too slowly for my tastes. If a 
bug is in the accessibility infrastructure (i.e. pyatspi, atspi, atk and others), then they’ll be sitting 
there for years. Not to mention bugs within Gnome itself or third party apps/frameworks (LibreOffice and Qt 
just to mention two examples).

(1): Evolution accessibility is improving from what I can read, but currently it’s tricky to get to the 
message body after you open it. There is thunderbird as an alternative, but if you are like me and use more 
than 5 different mailboxes with 20+ different folders and thousands of messages, you won't find Thunderbird a 
great piece of software to work with in terms of accessibility.

(2) Recently, there has been some work to improve these aspects in Orca. We’ll see them in a 3.18 or 
something like that release, so be patient if you need some serious accessibility support within web content.

Vincenzo.


Il giorno 05 ago 2015, alle ore 08:30, Keith Hinton <keithint1234 gmail com> ha scritto:

Hi folks,
it has been a very long while since I have posted to the Orca mailing list.
In fact, more than a year.
I was writing in to find out from people who know what they are 
talking about what the current state of Linux accessibility is with 
Orca, etc.
I was wondering how the major Linux distributions like Fedora, Open 
Sues, etc are doing with Orca, Speech Dispatcher, and generally over 
all how is Linux these days?
I have avoided Linux for a long while because I have a friend who 
believes  actually, who is utterly convinced that linux accessibility 
is going backwards.
But I don't honestly know for sure if that is so.
So, I naturally question him and would like to know from those of you 
out their who are involved in Linux accessibility generally how do you 
think Linux is?
WouldI be able to run something under Gnome these days like Virtual Box?
How does Linux perform with the latest and greatest CPUs, multi core 
SMP hardware and such from your experiences>?
My friend says to me that most of you are using old clunky outdated 
hardware which is why you don't get Speech Dispatcher or Orca 
subsystem crashes, etc.
But I haven't used Linux in so long that I figure the time is now to 
actually just come out and ask and see what responses I get.
Obviously, I know that everybody will have their own distribution prefferences.
But I'm not here to start a war on Ubuntu, vs Fadora, etc.
I am trying aside from an OS specific fight to figure out what the 
current honest state of Linux accessibility is.
Is it actually falling back and going backwards and thus dying out?
I don't know.
Is it worth grabbing something like the latest oh, I don't know, Open 
Suse, Fadora or similar and giving Orca a spin?

So I was hopeing some of you out their might have a better idea.
Thanks!

All the best,
Keith
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Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at 
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_______________________________________________
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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