State of accessibility in linux

Jacob Schmude j.schmude at gmail.com
Thu May 25 17:05:33 EDT 2006


Hi Scott
With regard to Gnome accessibility, don't forget about the other  
screen reader, Orca. It has great potential and, at least for me, has  
superceded gnopernicus completely. It's scriptable and has  
independent cursor moving keys similar to speakup, with the ability  
to click the mouse where the cursor is as the windows screen readers  
do. Voiceover is still much more efficient at this point, yet Orca is  
getting better quite fast.
Just my $0.02


On May 25, 2006, at 10:01 AM, Scott Howell wrote:

> For Gnome there's Gnopernicus which at least as of the last time I
> tried it, it worked, but wasn't very efficient. I had real hopes that
> would be the case, but if your looking for a comparison between the
> gui-based Linux solutions and the Mac, the Mac would win hands down.
> I say this because so far KDE isn't accessible to my knowledge,
> Gnopernicus despite being a solution and a good one isn't really
> ready for daily use based on my experience, and I am sure this will
> improve with time. On the other hand, the Mac with VoiceOver is what
> I use daily and for a large number of tasks and its very good. Is it
> perfect? No, but then what adaptive solution is. They all have their
> issues, but you simply have to choose what works best for you. Now if
> your talking about access from the console, well Speakup will win
> everytime because there is truly an accessible solution if there ever
> was one. Speakup reigns supreme from the console providing more
> access than any other adaptive solution both gui or console-based.
> Now these are just my opinions and if you disagree, that's fine, I'm
> not looking to turn this into a pissing contest, just merely making
> some observations based on my experience.
>
>
> Scott
>
>
>
> On May 25, 2006, at 6:52 AM, sean murphy wrote:
>
>> Hi Andrew,
>>
>> The accessibility to Linux varies depending on which application
>> you are
>> using.  I know of four applications for the shell environment.
>>
>> Speakup
>> Emacs speak (its own desktop environment)
>> BRLTTY (only used with braille displays)
>> IBM (They have a screen reader which I know very little about)
>>
>> There is a XWindows screen reader, but I don't know much about it
>> and how
>> good it is.  If anyone on the list could add some info to this, I
>> would be
>> welcomed.  I would like to know how it compares to Windows or MAC.
>>
>> Sean
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Andrew Wagner" <wagner.andrew at gmail.com>
>> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>> Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2006 11:40 AM
>> Subject: State of accessibility in Linux
>>
>>
>>> Hi all.
>>> I'm pretty new to this list. What is the state of accessibility
>>> for linux
>>> users? I read somewhere that there was at one time a goal of  
>>> having a
>>> screen
>>> reader that functioned from boot up to shut down. Is that the case
>>> now? Is
>>> there a linux distribution where the installation is local and
>>> accessible?
>>> What projects need to be done? I have a goal to find/create a linux
>>> distribution to get my (blind) girlfriend off her dependency on
>>> Microsoft.
>>> One of these days...
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Speakup mailing list
>>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
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