1 of 2 - Re: Hardware for new Linux installs?

[Tony Baechler]

I'm sending this again since apparently you didn't see my original reply. 
Also, I don't know of any easy way to use hardware speech with a GUI.  Yes, 
there are versions of synthesizers which sound like Eloquence, but I really 
wouldn't recommend them.  First, they are not free software, so don't expect 
any community support.  Second, they don't work well on 64-bit systems from 
my understanding.  You really don't want to run a 32-bit Linux box with lots 
of memory due to hardware and BIOS limitations.  I can definitely notice a 
speed improvement with 64-bit Linux.  Almost any modern AMD and Intel CPU 
will work.  If you really want to play with the GUI, Ubuntu might be a 
better choice, but it seems to have more accessibility issues.  I personally 
like Debian a lot after trying Gentoo, Slackware and RHEL.  I've not used 
Fedora or Arch.  My original text is below.

I just had a brand new server built, so I feel qualified to answer your 
questions.  Write me privately if you want the exact hardware details.  Yes, 
it has an onboard serial port.  No, new kernels still have broken serial 
support, so that means that you'll be installing with software speech.  I 
can't comment on anything other than Debian and Ubuntu, but they both use 
ESpeak, so learn to live with it.  The US English voice isn't too terrible 
once you get used to it.  I also have little interest in the GUI, but I 
think Debian and Ubuntu are your best bets.  I'll leave it to others to 
comment on Gnome 3 accessibility and Orca.

In short, what I would recommend is a new machine with Debian Squeeze. 
Squeeze still supports hardware speech.  You can then upgrade it to Wheezy 
which uses kernel 3.2 and doesn't support hardware speech.  That way at 
least you have the old kernel to fall back on and you won't have to do the 
install with ESpeak.  Another option might be to move everything to a VPS or 
dedicated server and just set up a dual boot Windows and Linux system or run 
Linux in a virtual machine.  I must say that I'm very happy with my Debian 
server which routinely handles hundreds of email messages and a few regular 
ftp connections.  I'm glad I left Gentoo behind, but I read that Arch is 
supposed to be good.

On 12/5/2012 5:20 PM, Jayson Smith wrote:
> What I need to know is, what kinds of systems are people using these days
> for new Linux installs? I don't want to try to migrate my old system over to
> new hardware, since it was a hopelessly outdated Gentoo install. I probably
> wouldn't go with Gentoo again anyway. So what minimum hardware requirements,
> what distro? I'd love to play around with a GUI, but I absolutely can't
> stand Espeak! The GUY doesn't work with hardware synths, right? What about
> newer kernels and serial ports? If I do go with a GUI, is there any way to
> get Eloquence for it? Is anyone selling pre-built Linux systems for blind
> folks?