Re: [orca-list] victory! Linux mint to ship orca by default

[Tony Baechler <tony baechler net>]

Hi,

Yes, OK, I agree that choice is good.  The more choices the blind have, the 
better.  However, I don't get the point.  I'm really dense I guess, but the 
"victory" escapes me.  Why not just install Ubuntu MATE instead?  I'm glad 
to see Orca being shipped by default and I appreciate your efforts in this 
area, but as you say, Cinnamon still needs work.  Yes, it's good to see it 
shiped with the MATE edition, but for someone doing a new install, I don't 
see the advantage.  In the case of a sighted person having already installed 
it and a blind person wanting to use it, Orca is only a package installation 
away, of course assuming the sighted person wants to install the package. 
Will Orca actually be installed by default?  Ubuntu ships thousands of 
packages, but most of them are not actually installed when the system is 
installed.  If Orca is actually installed as part of the base desktop 
system, that truly is a victory and I'm very happy to see it.

Cinnamon is already packaged in Debian and Ubuntu for those who want to try 
it.  In my opinion, I would rather see accessibility effort spent on 
improving Cinnamon since it's widely available in major distributions 
without installing Mint.

One thing I failed to mention in my last message is I do like their podcast. 
 They seem to be very proactive about getting new users.  As discussed here 
a while ago, there is a serious need for Linux tutorials and podcasts.  That 
need isn't just for the blind, it's for the sighted as well.  It's hard to 
find current (current emphasized) podcasts for the sighted community which 
are for new users.  Ubuntu is very good in this area, but I think Mint is 
better.  That's probably why it's so popular.  It's interesting that it 
apparently doesn't ship Gnome.

On 11/5/2015 2:38 AM, kendell clark wrote:
> hi
> Well as said in my email, cinnamon still needs quite a bit of work, it's
> definitely not ready for the average blind user yet. But clem is also
> adding orca to the mate version, and that's a different story
> altogether. I'm not completely sure what's so compelling about mint but
> it is popular, so we should be able to use it just as effectively as the
> sighted people do.