Re: [orca-list] Is the manjaro installer accessible?

[Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com>]

I'm going to concentrate on your selection of desktops.  There are a few options out there based on how much 
configuring and tweaking you are comfortable with or are even willing to do:

Gnome is the most reliably accessible option.
Unity in Ubuntu is workably accessible if you want something other than Gnome.
Mate is very accessible but, it's a fork of gnome 2 so, if you are anti-gnome, you are not going to be happy. 
 I tried it and liked it.
XFCE has reported high levels of accessibility except for the file manager and the panels. 
Fluxbox can be made to work accessibly with a good bit of tweaking and a script.
LXDE is somewhat accessible but needs some tweaking and tinkering.
KDE is the king of overpromising and underdelivering in a11y for screen readers.  It's been almost accessible 
for years now.  If you want to use it, be prepared for disappointment. There's basically been just one person 
working in his spare time on qt accessibility and no organized, concerted effort to get the desktop itself 
working with Orca.  

So, there you go.  Moral of the story:  gnome, Mate and Unity will require the least amount of tweaking and 
configuring,.  All the rest are pretty iffy or require lots of setup.  There are choices out there though.

Alex M

-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of B. Henry
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 11:35 AM
To: austinAustin quesada; orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] Is the manjaro installer accessible?

Arch may break stuff, but I have never seen it break accessibility. You can always freeze some packages from 
updating if you have specific fears, but speakup is in all the kernels, and orca  updates would only effect 
some functionality if you choose the orca-git package in the AUR where clearly you are working with 
development versions. The at-spi packages do  mostly have git options as well, but I have mostly run the 
stable branch versions, mostly in extra or commnunity repos, same with speech-dispatcher, although I did use 
the AUR version for a while. Again, I have had arch breakage, but accessibility has never been the issue. 
Some packages may requiure some initial configuration to get the most accessible interface, but those 
configurations are not overwritten with updates. 
You can add repos to get your proprietary firmware if you wish to use Debian. 
Manjaro has more than one version as I recall, but I do not know if they all use the same installer or not. 
Ubuntu will give you out of the box hardware support for most machines, so as Kyle states it is also a good 
option. 
Orca is a gnome project, so it is hardly a surprise that it concentrates on gnome. XFCE devs seem to be 
generally overwhelmed, and have given up on accessibility for the moment, proablyh the year anyway. Mate 
cares, and Orca has made the minor adaptations required to help it be a very good alternative. 
My suggestion is to contact those in charge of any desktop you wish to use and ask about accessiility, and  
make specific suggestions if things are far enough along to do that. 
If you do not mind installing a new OS frequently then Fedora is an option as well, and I know some folks 
using Gentoo, but you need to know your stuph before jumping in there, more so than with arch which requires 
more time and knowledge than the other options mentioned. 



-- 
     B.H.
   Registerd Linux User 521886


  austinAustin quesada wrote:
Wed, Mar 04, 2015 at 03:56:00PM -0800

> Hi list. While i think sonar is great, i was wondering if manjaro 
> itself has orca built in? If not, could you guys advise on a distro 
> that is not debien based? I know people usually advise ubuntu or gnome 
> as the default desktop. I'm admittedly a bit frustrated that linux 
> accessibility appears to be singularly focused on the gnome project, 
> or Ubuntu. While arch is a great option, my concern is that it's 
> frequent updates have the possibility of breaking accessibility. Sorry 
> for my rant, but i'm basically looking for a distro that doesn't use 
> gnome as the default, but could still work with orca, whether through 
> an installer, or the command line. So, what are my options? The reason 
> i brought up Debien is because, it seems to have issues with most of 
> my hardware, because i seem to need a lot of proprietary firmware and 
> drivers. Thanks for any advice, and thanks for reading.
> _______________________________________________
> 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