Vinux (was: Re: Accessible Ubuntu Installation?)

[al Sten-Clanton]

Hi!

I used to call myself a "hard-core integrationist."  Although I'd like to
find myself a lable with a somewhat different emphasis, being less
interested in conformity than in promoting equality in the number and
quality of choices, that's still not a bad term for my take on the world.
As a general approach to living in the world, therefore, I regard your
points as very sound.  

I presently use a mainstream Linux distro, Fedora.  I had to make this
version of it accessible, though, and was only able to do it after I found
the installation guide to a much earlier version.  I could upgrade to this
version only because I had a version modified with speakup.  I believe it's
correct to call this a specialized spin, and I also take it that the Fedora
gang itself is not about to make speakup available in the standard versions
any time soon, if at all.  Is this very different from Vinux, or from Chris
Brannon's Arch Linux CD?  Is it--well--less integrated than using GRML,
which I have used,  or the latest Debian release?  (Vinux is based on or is
a variant of Ubuntu, after all, and may become one of Debian, both utterly
mainstream distros.)

Frankly, I thought it was pretty cool that Vinux gave me speech
automatically when I booted up the CD:  I didn't have to wait the right
number of seconds to type just the right thing, but could sit and wait like
my sighted peers.  I didn't get as much boot-up info as they'd get, but
that's not Vinux's fault.  Maybe this is a quirk of mine, but Vinux also
made it easier to get started with Orca, though I then went back to Fedora
to go further.  

Since there seem to be a lot of specialized Linux distros, I doubt at this
point that some made to work better than usual for blind people are
necessarily nitches in second-class cybercitizenship.  Regarding
accessibility, I'm sure no better off if a mainstream distro drops it than
if an accessible distro dies.  We BrailleNote users know that special tools
can have big problems, but I'd bet that those of the BrailleNote, for
example, would be fewer or more manageable if its software was "free." 

That's my penny's worth for now.

Al

 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Tony Baechler
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 7:22 AM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Vinux (was: Re: Accessible Ubuntu Installation?)

Hi,

I'm not trying to pick on this particular post or the person posting it.  Is
it just me, or do others here have a real problem with the idea of using a
specialized distro for the blind?  Let me explain what I mean.  I am a very
happy Debian user, although I've looked at Slackware, Red Hat, Gentoo and
the Ubuntu live CD.  All of those are mainstream distributions that happen
to have accessibility support.  Is it just my attitude or do others find
using a special distro for the blind demeaning and insultive?  Instead of
expecting people to use a blind-friendly distro, why not use an already
accessible distro such as Debian or Ubuntu in the first place?  Besides
generally getting a lot better support and a larger user base, there is no
guarantee that a single developer will continue releasing new versions of
the specialist distro in a timely manner.  That happens with mainstream
distros already.  Also, granted I refuse to use the Vinux CD for the simple
reason that I feel that I shouldn't have to use a specialist distro, but
what does it offer that Ubuntu doesn't already?  From what I've read, it has
deleted graphics packages but still comes with the same accessibility
features and packages.

A good example of what I'm talking about is Oralux.  It's now abandoned and
apparently used its own packaging system.  I was helping someone switch to
grml because Oralux wasn't really working anymore and was abandoned.  Why
not just use Debian or grml in the first place?  If someone could please
explain why Vinux is so much better than a mainstream distro and why one
should lower their standards to using a special distro primarily for the
blind, I would be very interested.  To me, this is like being required to
use sighted help for something that the blind can do independently.  Note
that I'm not talking about using a screen reader or software to help the
blind do a task easier, I'm only talking about locking oneself into a
special distro that might not have long term support and is not designed for
the general population.

Georgina Joyce wrote:
> But just having caught up I noticed that no-one seemed to mention vinux.
>   

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