Re: [orca-list] my report on slint

[Didier Spaier <didier slint fr>]

Hello,

Le 31/01/2018 à 04:25, kendell clark a écrit :
> Hi all
>
> I’ve just finished downloading and installing slint.

Good, but the version you downloaded don't have the enhancements of
the one I will hopefully before midnight (7:15 AM here, UTC+1).

Upgrading without reinstalling will be possible though. 

> It is a very accessible Linux distro and it is accessible in text mode.
> But I wasn’t able to test the accessibility of the graphical mode,
> although I do believe it works, because the installer starts in text
> mode.

During installation you could have selected the graphical mode, but as
Jude pointed out just typing "startx" starts a graphical environment.

Before you do that you can type session-chooser to choose among all
graphical environments installed. This includes all those I have listed
previously (mate uses the marco window manager, compiz will come today)
plus blackbox, fluxbox and windowmaker, to list those more or less
accessible.

You can type as root the "login-chooser" command to switch to a display
manager at next boot. The choice is among "text" (what you have now),
kdm (if KDE is installed), gdm2 (speaks), lightdm (speaks), or lexdm. 

> If there is a graphical installer, I was unable to find and use it...

There is none, maybe later if someone helps. But I plan to provide a
live version from which it will be possible to install in graphical
mode.
 
> ... or start a desktop.

See above.
> If I could suggest some fixes, it would be fixing the boot loader
> accessibility which might not be possible because no boot loader is
> accessible regardless of OS,

Not possible so far, because no booter loader has this ability so far.

> and adding  options to launch desktops, in addition to the text
> installer.

Launch desktop is already possible. Yu can choose the "graphical" mode
when asked or switch to graphiucal afterwards, as stated above.

> Also, there is no way to install only portions of the software. You
> must install all desktops and software programs, which is why an
> installed system takes up 11 gb of space.

Yes. Nowadays I think this is acceptable, and this greatly helps
manage the distribution. If you don't install KDE you will save a couple
of g though. And the installed software that you don't use won't bite
you and won't make the system slower as yiu know (but maybe not every
one knows). 

> These are  not complaints at all. The slint devs have done a fantastic
> job, and I have no doubt that all the desktops they include are
> accessible.

To be honest, neither KDE nor TWM  are really easily accessible. The
other ones are.

> So to summarize, my list of suggested changes would  be a graphical
> installer if there isn’t already one,

If someone helps, maybe. It would be preferable to custom an existing
one if at all possible, as writing one from scratch is a lot of work. As
an aside, we do not use systemd and that won't change at least unless
or until Slackware itself uses it.

> options to boot into desktops

Done

> and a way to select exactly the software the user wants.

Well, I would be reluctant to allow a partial installation (only KDE is
optional so far).

> That is it. Everything else works as advertised. I would also suggest
> auto partitioning, in both the text and graphical installers, since
> for now the user has to know fdisk, gdisk, or cfdisk commands to do it.

In text mode this couls be added. If we porvide a live version, maybe
gparted could be used from the live system (it's already shipped in
Slint). 

> This is not a complaint either, the documentation is very good. I’d be
> more than happy to help get this done, although I cannot code. Yet.

Help is welcome indeed.
> Thanks
>
> Kendell Clark

Greetings,

Didier