# Breaking the windows barrier

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by ablindgibsongirl (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Saturday, 29-Nov-2008 13:52:14

Hi all, I was left in the dust by the computer age years ago after leaving, er escaping my psycho family. The only sane way I can think to catch up would be to learn something that's not jfw or window eyes. I've had a thought for a number of years to learn linux as it's more like dos where you have full access to all parts of the computer. Plus textbased applications give the blind computer user an edge he wouldn't have otherwise. Despite having a sighted person around there's no reason he should have to reformat my computer as well.Are there any linux users here and if so is this a practical solution? Are there other textbased operating systems out there that can get me back in to something like normal computer usage. And wasn't there a laptop made specifically for blind folk that could run linux? Penny for your thoughts.Tiffany

## Post 2 by Jesse (Hmm!) on Saturday, 29-Nov-2008 17:12:05

Look at a Mac running OSSX Leopard. It is fully accessible from installing and reformatting, to all the other things a computer is for. In addition, you can do many things in a text interface called the console. You can also use terminal to do other things in a text box, but can also switch baWindows, especially if you're looking to dump Jaws.

## Post 3 by SingerOfSongs (Heresy and apostasy is how progress is made.) on Saturday, 29-Nov-2008 19:51:19

There are several linux distros that are accessible right from install, or at least nearly so. (You'll usually have to issue one or 2 commands, and you'll be alright.) Ubuntu comes to mind, though it's certainly not the only one.

## Post 4 by jamesk (This site is so "educational") on Saturday, 29-Nov-2008 21:32:04

What about looking in to System Access to Go as an option rather than JAWS?

## Post 5 by Big Pawed Bear (letting his paws be his guide.) on Sunday, 30-Nov-2008 1:50:56

system access and the whole Sa thing is great. just unload your screen reader and then go to www.satogo.com and follow the prompts. the latest version of SAtogo is great.

## Post 6 by blindndangerous (the blind and dangerous one) on Sunday, 30-Nov-2008 11:10:13

I agree with what Jesse has told you. The only problem I had with ubuntu, was Orca is kinda sluggish, but maybe that was because I was running it with leopard under Virtual Box. Other then that, I'd say Ubuntu. I'll pass this topic on to Squiggles, he knows more about linux then I do.

## Post 7 by ¤§¤spike¤§¤ (This site is so "educational") on Sunday, 30-Nov-2008 12:09:31

Its been a while since I've personally used Ubuntu, but it does like my laptop and all of its associated hardware. The other Linux distro that I know that is accessible from the get go, mostly is OpenSuSE 11, by Novell. OpenSolaris by sun Microsystems is accessible, but I haven't tried it, so can't comment. Plus that's Unix not Linux, there're suttle differences as to how commands are run in the terminal, hth.

## Post 8 by Squiggles (Account disabled) on Sunday, 30-Nov-2008 12:27:00

Since I was asked to give my 2 scense, I would have to say congrats to keeping this topic on focus. Posts 1 through 3 have the right idea. however as for Jamask she clearly says she wants to break free of windows.
The mac is definitely one way to go, with voice over. I love my mac and with the rapidly growing number of applications, it is just as easy as well as just as hard to find apps for the mac as it is for Windows.
In my passed few years of experience with installing different distros, I've become more independent, of course, however, you will need some hardware to get yourself off the ground, but this depends on what you go with.
I have used SuSe 9 and looked at 10 and was turned off immediately as the mere look of it looks like vista. The install was not accessible, but starting with SuSe 11, I have learned it is accessible, but Yast, the package manager still has many issues, as Marco Scambrax is fighting tooth and nail to fit accessibility in with the picture. I have only really used Gnopernicus, yes, gnopernicus, I guess you could say I'm an old fart for *nix accessibility. I cannot verify, confirm nor deny how well Orca works with SuSe at this time.
I have used Ubuntu since version 5.10 when it was hardly accessible, again starting with Gnopernicus. This did not last for long, and the install at this time was not accessible either. The last version I've used for Ubuntu is version 7.10. Orca was good, yet I cannot figure out why the entire thing is sluggish. I don't know if it is attributed to Orca or Ubuntu, but I find the whole OS to be quite the pits. But my philosophy is, if you are attempting to run Linux, you are serious about getting work done not just having an orgasm admiring the screen and how colorful it is. Nah, not for me.
When I purchased my Dell power edge server I installed Debian 4.0 Etch which is strictly command line. I used my BrailleNOte's braille display and brltty to do the install with. Luckily, brltty is already in debian but speakup is not. I was able to configure my entire system via braille output. This was not hard to do. Right now all I have attached to that box is a power cord and an ethernet cable.
I have used other distros such as Fedora, which was a bit full of itself, and did not play well with orca, though this was Fedora core 5 at the time and orca was in its early stages, about 3 years ago.
For my purposes, I have had the most success with speakup, brltty than I think anyone will ever have with orca. As good as orca will ever be, there will be many many underlying problems such as speech dispatcher, gnome speech, and even the synth and O/S it is running on. With speakup and/or brltty it does not matter how slow the box is, it will always be speedy. Hardware synths are much more reliable than software ones. Software synths can slow down the box with extra processing power and even lock up and crash.
If your intention, post one, is to get work done or even learn about computers and how they function in a systematic way, you are headed in the right path, and if studying about machines is what you want to do, then I think a command line version of *nix, would be the most beneficial path. yes, mac is awesome, but you just don't have full command line access as you do in say debian. For a server, or even just learning, debian is the perfect choice and i would advise anyone to try it. It does not hold you hand, but it will not push off a cliff either. Documentation is good, I've found, but i didn't need as much as you may need, that is, if you decide to use debian, because I had experience already with different distros and the way things are done.
A word of the wise. Other side show distros may be fine, but I would stick with the mainstream distros. I've even gone as far as installing and trying to configure my own Gentoo system. Once I rebooted and ran genkernel I rebooted and found myself faced with something any power user hates. A dreaded black screen. All that damned work, yes it took hours, and the thing wouldn't even boot! Arghe, well I hope you find yourself a good distro. If you are a novis you may try out Ubuntu, but you may get frustrated with it if you are not running it on a newer box simply because it is a bit sluggish. Orca has come a long way, I must give them credit.
Later

## Post 9 by va3ets (Veteran Zoner) on Sunday, 30-Nov-2008 13:12:53

NOt really knowing much about Linux, and working in a command line, I've had a mac since February,and would highly reccomend it.

## Post 10 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Sunday, 30-Nov-2008 16:11:04

Hmm, wow, this is exactly my problem with Unix/Linux. There are so many distributions, different packages, the slight differences call for different accessibility options. Does any program that runs on one distribution run on another or are the dists so specific you actually, more or less, need a special version for a program for any one of them, or does anything that runs on "linux" run on most or all of the dists?
Iused Solaris extensively through Putty (a telnet client) for work when maintaining a big data processing server and I think the command line is brilliant, piping together different utilities like grep and find allowed me to do things Windows just does not allow, e.g. pattern matching through a group of files in a matter of seconds, and the shell scripting is way more powerful. For everyday uses though I'm still a happy Windows user, though I'll venture into Mac world if I get to try out a Mac for free somehow for some days sometime.
But I think still linux is very much for the more ahrdcord computer user who does not mind being very well informed of what's out there and very much someone who enjoys messing around with computers and software. I'm still half expecting one dist of linux to be predominant enough to be a viable alternative to Windows and Macs commercially and then hopefully its accessibility will become an even higher priority.
Cheers
-B

## Post 11 by ablindgibsongirl (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Sunday, 30-Nov-2008 21:56:20

All posts so far have been very helpful. Yes, I do want to get work done. My intention is to have an independent business & that would mean I'd need everything at my fingertips. I need a solid system for word-processing data archiving, library building bookkeeping etc. What kind of computer would be the best option? what size hardrive, how much ram? And of course the ultimate question, how pricy is a console decent desktop etc. What is the basic setup that I need to pay attension to, and will this play well with the braillenote or do I need to get a new notetaker as well? I think we're going to patronize the local rotery club or possibly the American Legion, Lions are spread pretty thin and I don't want to go the rehab route. I like being at home. Not to mension this is all designed to get me as self-sufficient businesswise and lifewise as possible & I think this will do it. Thank you all very much for your help. Tiffany

## Post 12 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Monday, 01-Dec-2008 14:46:11

Hmm, well, I am not sure how well Linux/Unix would work for you for these things and I think jumping out of the console days into more Windows like environment is your best bet to be honest. I can't speak for Macs, others will tell you about their qualities and it sounds like they might be a way to go. For their desktops or laptops you're looking at $1000 to $2000, desktops could be slightly cheaper but I am not sure.
For Windows for what you need you can get a decent $300 desktop that would give you enough memory/processor power to easily do all of these things, dual core processor, 320gb hard drive, 2gb memory (4gb is nice but often overkill) sadly Freedom Scientific are not keeping up so 64 bit O.S. is something to watch out for as only System Access works with that.
I'm a big fan of Excel, Access for the every day office user and Quickbooks is supposed to be best for accounting. I can't speak for its accessibility but Excel is pretty accessible with Jaws or any of the major screen readers. The MS Office suite will cost you, think it's around 150 for Macs and 200 to 300 for Windows depending on your needs, but you might be able to get Office 2003 for much less for Windows since it's not the latest and greatest and it's way more accessible and convenient to use that 2007 in my opinion.
Of course with a Windows PC there's the issue of a screen reader. System Access is increasingly good and costs you $400 but the braille support is still limited to just one module. Jaws or Window Eyes will be between $660 and $800 I think, I would advice against buying the maintainance agreements for Jaws since at least every other upgrade is simply not worth the money, e.g. Jaws 9 go Jaws 10 is just not worth it. This gives full braille support and decent support in Windows Console, or dos, mode if you have a braille display. If you need to purchase a braile display I do have two for sale, lol, but they are expensive of course, but I'd try to get you the best deal (and if you have better ways or own one, all the better).
So if you need to buy computer, screen reader and office the difference between Macs and Windows are no that drastic, to be honest, if you hve the screen reader already a Windows based computer would be much more affordable at least in the short term.
If you need a specific desktop deal, for instance, or have more specific question you can send me a private message, I expect Willy the Woof man will post and address the pros of Macs, he's working on convincing me and I've stopped shudderfing and yelling indignantly when he mentions them so may be he'll winme over one of these days.
With Macs though, I would wait to buy one until after January, since I suspect they might come out with cheaper modules in 2009 and they announce their innovations at the end of January, then you can often get good deals on last year's machines or get more bang for your buck.
Cheers
-B

## Post 13 by b3n (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Monday, 01-Dec-2008 17:28:46

In actual fact, if we work on the assumption that your blind and that you have paid for all your software, its actually considerably cheaper to get a mac, but at the end of the day it all comes down to your taste.
I've used xp extencively and tiger to a lesser extent, and excluding the built in screenreader in tiger, I really don't see anything that makes it stand out from xp - there pretty much equal.
Everyone moans about how there windows always crashes - I don't kno what people do to there computers, but it rarely crashes with me. There are some situations where applications crash and i've had to end processes which is the equivalent to force quiting something on the mac, but at the end of the day, both xp and tiger rarely crash.
If you can give us a ruff idea of the price then we will be able to advise you as to what to do.

## Post 14 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Monday, 01-Dec-2008 20:30:54

I have to agree with that, I'm quite happy with XP and it has rarely failed, even when running multiple processes, download, music, compiling of code, email, multiple explorer windows etc. I do not agree with people who claims that XP keeps crashing, at least not after service pack 2. I have had two instances in the last 6 months where my Jaws somehow interacted with a web page script, think it was Flash, that crashed my Windows without warning, but apart from that I've had no issues, despite the fact my desktop is on 24/7.
For an example of a computer that would definitely be sufficient here's an url to one that costs $299, it's a decent deal but you could get away with less for sure: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=210474838&adid=17070&dcaid=17070
cheers
-B
p.s. if any linux guy would care to comment on the most common accounting and open office programs for unix/linux and their accessibility I would be curious to know.

## Post 15 by Squiggles (Account disabled) on Friday, 05-Dec-2008 18:27:51

Open office for linux and using orca does work much much better than before. I know it sounds as if Nothing will be compatible with the different distros of linux but let me simplify something here. Each distribution may use a different package manager e.g. Debian apt-get or dpkg, ubuntu same, fedora/redhat redhat package manager rpm, and slacks with tgz. Other than this, there is nothing different about each distribution. Freebsd however is slightly different in their installs/kernel and the FS itslef, so lets not go there. You can install any program you want on any distribution, so long as you have sufficient dependencies. Now of course, it depends on how far off the deep end you want to go. Each distro is more or less, no pun intended there, the same. However, setting it uup/configuring a gentoo system, say, is quite the challenge. If you want to get right to work, then debian is the way to go. Package managers are so much easier than installing and compiling from source, because apt-get or gentoos I forget what it is called will grab all packages required so you have no worries. Command line is awesome, and hey, if you buy a quad core, you will at least get to actually take advantage of all 4 cores be it true quad core processors or 2 dual cores. There are numorous options for accessibility brltty, speakup, orca, all of which I've used. For my dell power edge server i use ssh for it since it is a server I see no need to be sitting in front of it, despite the fact I have no braille note.
I have used all 3 accessibility tools listed above. brltty is how I was able to do the install fo debian with my braillte note. Mind you it took great pulling teeth to find the boot command but I did, never the less. I bought a double talk for my Birthday and have used it to boot into Knopix and the cd didn't even give me a boot prompt/it found my DT and it started talking no questions were asked.
Memory, honestly memory is not an issue, even with several daemons running on a text system you will not use nearly as much. Here is proof. I logged into webmin for my server. I see that with apache running and a few other things, only 61 mb are used out of 512 mb of total physical ram. Seriously just forget about it, but the lowest end system or the highest end system you will not know a difference. Hard disk space, well, I can tell you that devian, with all updates, lays down about 3 gb out of a 30 gb drive.
A little FYI. When installing, I recommend using the reiserfs filesystem it is much faster and secure than ext2 or ext3. I'm not sure how much it uses of the drive for itself thoguh.