Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

VMWare is free? If yes, would you give me the address to download it? And is 
it possible to run it under Windows XP?
Thanks.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples at aim.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> Speakup and orca perform two different tasks, they work on different
> parts of the operating system. To understand this you will need to
> understand the difference of the text console and the GUI in Linux.
>
> The text console of Linux, is a purely text based system. If you wish to
> make a Ms comparison, the text console is like DOS. The text console
> provides nearly (possibly all) the apps you will need. Many use the text
> console as it is simpler, faster, and to some a preferable way to work.
> The GUI is a Windows like environment. This environment may be more
> welcoming to a person used to using Ms Windows, as in the GUI there are
> all the usual things you expect, menus, list views, etc, meaning you
> don't necessarily need to know how to use it fully (where as in the text
> console you really need to know the commands). These two environments
> are entirely separate, but you can have both environments on the system
> (to use another Ms comparison, in the days of windows 95 it was possible
> to use a proper DOS environment but you could also load into windows on
> that one machine, Linux is like this, not like windows XP where the only
> DOS like environment is a command window).
>
> Now to explain why you would need speakup and orca. Speakup works only
> for the text console (again in Ms terms, DOS screen readers could only
> read DOS), and Orca only works in the GUI (a windows screen reader only
> works in windows or a command prompt window, not a full DOS system). In
> the GUI in Linux, there are command prompt terminal windows which work
> with Orca, but I don't think Orca works as well as speakup does when I
> want to do text commands.
>
> One thing I would say, remember Linux stuff is generally free, so if you
> have the time, you may just want to try a few distros to find out what
> suits you. You may wish to use a virtual machine system such as vmware
> to save having to keep reformatting drives while you just try things out
> and then when you have decided you could install your choice properly so
> you are running directly in Linux.
>
> It can be hard to answer some of the questions you have asked as alot
> comes down to personal preference, so that is why I suggested try some
> out and make your choice.
>
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 07:55 +0330, Parham wrote:
>> Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader itself,
>> why do I need the support of Speakup?
>> And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?
>> Yes. So far Ubuntu is very good since I want something which has gui and 
>> the
>> text version both together, but these questions that I mentioned above 
>> would
>> be what I will help me decide.
>> Thanks for your help, both.
>
>
>
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