Linux from windows

[Michael Whapples]

I think ubuntu would be a good way to go if you are used to windows at
the moment. The current release of ubuntu has everything you would need
for an independent accessible install. The latest release 6.10 edgy EFT
I mean, not the testing release 7.4 Feisty. There's information about
Orca the gnome screen reader (which ubuntu uses by default) at
http://live.gnome.org/Orca and there is information about accessible
installation as well. Note one problem which you may have is that your
sound card may not automatically be unmuted by the ubuntu CD (it might
be true for other distro CDs such as knoppix). Unless you have some
other way of accessing your computer (e.g. hardware synthesiser, braille
display, possibly serial terminal) you will need sighted assistance to
unmute the sound card.

You can normally have both linux and windows installed on the same
system, so you will be able to fall back to windows if there are tasks
that are too much at first. Ubuntu can sort out the disk for you so that
windows and linux work together, other distros may have there own tools,
but I don't know how automatic all of them are. If you are concerned
about it messing up your system there are ways to make the CD versions
of linux store settings on something like a usb drive, then your hard
disk will not be altered, I think there is information about this for
ubuntu in the documentation for it.

The above is assuming you are intending to use software speech
synthesis, if different then the difficulties you are having with
knoppix would be different, so different solutions are needed.

Hope this was of use,
Michael Whapples

On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 00:44 -0600, Anthony Creapeau wrote:
> How do I Migrate from windows to Linux?       I'm using Windows now but I
> really want to move to a blind accessible version of Linux. I've downloaded
> Knoppix_speakup and oralux but can not get knoppix to talk and do not want
> to learn the complicated commands of oralux. How can I get knoppix to talk
> and what version of ubuntu or debian will talk right from the start? I'd
> really like to move to Linux but I've had no luck so far. I'd really
> appreciate feedback.
> 
> Anthony Creapeau
> Management Information Systems
> Milwaukee School of Engineering
> voice mail: (414 418-1599
> email: creapeaa at msoe.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 
>