about the latest ubuntu

[Doug Smith]

Ok, I have to ask these questions.  I have enjoyed all the
conversations about hardware resources.  I know nothing of hardware,
and this discussion has been quite interesting, to say the least.
However, I need to know the following, if someone can help me before I
get the latest ubuntu and get into something I cannot use.  

First of all, how accessible is accessible?  With this combination of
espeak and this reader called orca, is it possible to effectively use
all the programs in the system?  Do you have remaining accessibility
problems, or do they all work?

Now, I have never, in my entire life, used a graphical interface, and
I have used computers for 21 years, 7 months, and a few stray days
here and there.  Just exactly how do I use this gnome interface?  When
I get the ubuntu system going, how can I do the following?

get online, read and send mail, read books, view pdf documents, view
MS word documents, write programs, build my web site, run the usual
administrative tools, and more?  

How do I get this screen reader to respond to my requests to see
what's on the entire screen, or just in a particular part of it?  

All of you who have moved to something like gnome are right.  I have
seen this coming, and have just hoped it wouldn't happen.  That's like
standing on the train track, because you like the sound of a
locomotive engine, or steam whistle, and hoping that the thing won't
hit and run over you, even though it's just 30 yards away.  I saw it
when I was in university and now, it's here.  

We cannot any longer avoid the need to go graphical because of such
technologies as javascript, dynamic content that changes each time you
open the web page and several others such as swf and other integrated
A/V technologies.  This is the only reasonable solution to our
problems.  We are working with devices that have been designed by
sighted persons, and they have just been good enough to allow us the
first access to these things.  We have come a long way ourselves, and
there is no real other way to do it than going to their graphical
interface, no matter how inefficient, memory-hogging, slow, or
undesirable in a billion other ways it might be.  The only other
alternative is to build our own internet and patch it into the
existing one.  

It is good that the text-based tools are still available through
xterm, gnome-terminal or whatever else there might be, and that can
still keep the old ways alive.  However, I just want to experiment
right now, and see how this stuff works.  If anyone could explain it
to me, and tell me what keys to enter, I can get started.  

Well, I hate to philosophize about change on here, but I just wonder
if anyone could explain to me how to use gnome and orca and I will go
and get the latest ubuntu and give it a test-drive.  



Thank you. 




-- 
Doug Smith: C.S.F.C.
Computer Scientist For CHRIST