Vinux

[Tony Baechler]

Hi,

I must disagree here.  Ubuntu already has Orca included on the live CD 
and can be accessed either once the CD is booted or from the boot menu 
with sighted help.  Perhaps you're saying that the general blind 
population would rather use a distro targeted to them, but even then I 
would be doubtful.  You don't see a special version of Windows or DOS 
for the blind, even though there are screen readers that can be 
installed.  I was independently able to boot and use the Ubuntu live CD 
and start Orca, although I did read posts here and at various other 
places first.  My point is that I'm really not sure that most blind 
people need or want a specialized distro and Ubuntu still fills the need 
for an accessible live CD.  This doesn't count grml, which also has 
software speech included and can be booted independently.  Finally, 
although Vinux is gaining in popularity, it still isn't that popular and 
is still relatively early in its development.

My great concern about projects such as Oralux and Vinux are that the 
mainstream developers, as well as other Linux users, will assume that no 
effort should be wasted in making their particular distro accessible 
because Vinux is already designed for the blind, so the blind should 
just use that.  Before the release of Debian Lenny, there was discussion 
on the various Debian lists from developers trying to understand why 
Speakup should be included as part of the installer.  Apparently quite a 
few people think that the blind should be relegated to their own special 
accessible CD image, leaving the regular CD images completely 
inaccessible.  As Samuel has pointed out, while a special CD image isn't 
all bad because of the overhead of software speech, it adds lots of 
extra confusion for the potential blind user who really doesn't know 
what to download.  I recently had a similar experience with Ubuntu, and 
I've been involved with Linux since 2000.  It took a long time before I 
could find the x86-64 standard Ubuntu CD image.  Ubuntu doesn't have a 
special accessible image because it isn't necessary.  I had no problem 
booting it and running Orca manually.  I can't imagine how much more 
difficult it would be for someone with no Linux knowledge and perhaps 
very little technical knowledge generally.  Getting back to the original 
point, I guess that's where Vinux might be useful, there is no thought 
required in trying to figure out what distro to use.  However, one 
should, in an ideal world, be able to download any CD image of any 
distro and have accessibility included with no worries of whether it's a 
special distro for the blind or not.

James & Nash wrote:
> Also it is a way to get blind people interested in Linux without 
> having to mess around with various things. Linux still has a 
> reputation for being very technical and designed primarily for very 
> computer literate people not just the average home user which I would 
> think the majority of people blind and otherwise are. That said some 
> distros have made significant steps in making Linux accessible to a 
> growing range of folks.
>
> Take care
> James Lyn Nash and Twinny
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Samuel Thibault" 
> <samuel.thibault at ens-lyon.org>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 12:30 PM
> Subject: Re: Vinux (was: Re: Accessible Ubuntu Installation?)
>
>
> Tony Baechler, le Mon 01 Jun 2009 04:22:06 -0700, a écrit :
>> 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,
>
> My understanding is that it's available _now_ with tweaks here and
> there, not waiting for distributions to properly fix things like e.g.
> orca's reading of root-launched applications.  I do too believe that
> it's not a viable long-term solution.
>
> Samuel
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