Category: Geeks r Us
Ok. For those of you out there who are still behind in Linux accessibility I will catch you up.
Linux has come a long way in just one year. Orca is up to version 2.21, and works in my opinion just as good as jaws does for windows, only it's linux.
Ok well what is Orca anyways? Orca is a scriptable, flexible and extensible screen reader written in python for the Gnome desktop under Linux. It provides access to everything with the ATSPI (assistive technology service provider interface), which is everything on the Ubuntu CD, which I will get to in a little. Orca can read dialogue boxes, menus, icons, and has a function called flat review. This is similar to the jaws cursor, which acts as the mouse pointer.
Unlike the older screen reader for Gnome, Gnopernicus, Orca can be scripted to function however the user wants. Of course there is a default script that does as best a job it can to provide default access to all programs under gnome.
Orca has been integrated into gnome since gnome 2.16, and can be found on the Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy live cd and the feisty live cd.
Well, how do I use Orca? Since orca is already in the o/s itself, all you'll need to do is boot the live cd and pressing alt f2 after you hear the log in sound and then typing orca. Orca will start talking and step you through the setup, then it will ask you to log out, at which point you press alt control escape and you will then hear a drum sound. wait a few seconds and you will be automatically logged back in. At this point you can press alt f2 and type orca again. This will start orca and you can now begin to use your linux desktop from the live cd. Remember, since this is a live cd, no changes will be saved, unless you install.
If you'd like to read more about orca, visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca. I have tested orca with the latest firefox from trunk and it's very good I recommend giving it a try. (firefox 3.0 a6).
Another thing that needs to be straightened out is how to burn the actual ISO image to a disk. You don't want to burn the actual file to a blank disk. You need a special program called Burncdcc. Basically what this does is extract the files from the image and burns them directly to the CD. An ISO image is an exact replication of a CD, and it is like a zip file in a way.
To use burncdcc, just open the executable, tab to browse, search for the image, press enter, then tab to start. The cd will pop out and there will be a dialogue that pops up that will ask for you to insert a blank disk. Just push the tray back in and click ok, and the burning will commence.
If you have any further questions for me leave them here or contact me off the boards.
Cody
Where can I obtain this CD?
Ubuntu can be downloaded from www.cdimage.ubuntu.com, and the latest beta builds can be obtained from there as well. Make sure you get the CD and not the dvd. If you like the live CD, you can install from that disk, which is nice since other distros such as suse make you download and waste two disks and only offer live dvds. The version you want to get is Feisty 7.04 desktop CD
Orca is no where near as good as jaws, and linux accessibility is still the domain of people who get hard ons by debugging obscure computer issues. Besides when linux gets to the point that every blind idiot Tom, Dick, and Sally are using it, that's when I use OpenBsd as my primary OS just to prove i'm better then all of you.
You are comparing apples and oranges when you speak of JAWS and Orca. Orca is developed differently then JAWS, and whereas JAWS has a whole company working on making a bad product, Orca makes it so that anyone can work on it and make their own changes and adaptations. No, that is not called scripting, by the way.
Again I will say orca is equivalent to jaws but we're talking about windows and linux. I don't debug anything and I dont' program I am simply a user. I have already said I am not a programmer so that statement is irrelivent. I use it because I think it is comparable. I have no problems with it and I can do anything with it. But unless you've used it for more then 5 minutes you wouldn't know that, as I've been using Ubuntu for the passed year exclusively and nothing else, so please reevaluate your comments. I may be a geek but I do know that it doesn't take a programmer or a rocket scientist to use orca. And yes, it is called scripting Python scripts. Someone better start doing their homework. If you are interested, join the orca list and ask some questions there.
Yo, I was just speaking about the fact that every program you get doesn't work with JAWS, therefore needing to be scripted for optimal performance. Orca has many people working on it, at least a lot more than Freedom Scientific, and therefore can patch things and put out scripts a lot faster.
Why does everyone insist that Jaws is a sh*tty product. Granted, I agree it is really expensive, but with my XP build Jaws has worked excellently and I have no complaints. Now, the big question is, does Orca use some hacking type technology such as display driver chaining to get the information on the screen or is such information retrieved from the O.S. itself through some interface that is here to stay. It looks like c dog said there is some type of accessibility type interface of that O.S. or at least a layer but is that something all apps written for it will automatically use, making them accessible, or will there be ad hoc solutions and custom scripting there too. The blame doesn't really lie with FS, it lies with the fact that there has not been a good reliable way to get info from the O.S. itself, MSAA has come a long way though and it's a big improvement and there are other, better technologies in Vista that will eventually enable us better access. Basically what I don't get is the endless Microsoft and FS bashing on all boards here, like it's fashionable, very often none of this bashing is properly backed up with any facts. It's fun but it's not very constructive.
cheers
-B
There is a linux equevelent to MSAA, and some of the GUI toolkits implimint it by default. From what I've sceen I'd say linux has a better foundation for accessibility then windows, but not enough has been built on top of the foundation. Codie let me give you some advice, yay for you, your a geek and are able to use Ubuntu as your primary OS. The average computer user is a complete idiot and can't. Just because you have had good experience doesn't mean everyone will, or most people will. The more ra ra ra linux stuff you do the more people will try it out. IF they don't have an easy user friendly expereience though you'll do more dammage by having them try it out before there truely ready to put in the effort and learn it on there own. If they arn't a hard core geek and things don't just work they may never give it a second chance.
Hey I never bashed Jaws I love jaws if I have to use windows, and I've never used any other windows based products to compare. But as a comparison to both platforms, I would say they are in my mind both equal. Sometimes I can be quite confusing.
My point is, you don't need to be a geek to use ubuntu. As long as you are told what to do for the first time you will be fine. It's fear of the unknown and ya know what, it's got to be broken sometime
C, I was referring to gandalf's comment in post 7, not to yours when I complained about the excessive Jaws bashing.
I think offering a scripting language with a screen rader is a strength, you may be using a propriatery system that you need accessibility to, no one else, and then you should have the tools necessary to make it accessible for you. If the screen reader company is to make every products used by every client accessible out of the box then we'd never see any updates to the products. FS has sometimes usd scripting as a sloppy add on to craete accessibility rather than implement the MSAA support fully or come up with more basic design changes, but lots of companies opt for the quick and dirty solutions. Sometimes it's ok, sometimes it sucks.
And, regarding Windows vs Linux. I think they can happily co exist. For the average user who wants to surf the net, check emails and play a few games, I think Windows is still a better bet, because it doesn't take much configuring, downloading or anything. The drawback is that it's big, clumsy and of course used by so many that it's the main taret for virus writers and trojans and all that stuff. Linux probably has better security features built in but also hardly anyone writes viruses for Linux because it is the geek system of choice.
For a highly scalable O.S. Linux is cool, also it's way cheaper and it can run on pretty much any processor, 32 or 64 bit. I am hoping that the ZFS file system will be in use soon, heard it's faster, more flexible and more secure and you can create one partition with multiple hard drives and even external drives.
If I were hosting a server or something like that I'd go for unix/linux without hesitation, more stable, you can just install what you need sso it's light weight and you can do really cool stuff with it. Also for ripping and converting audio and circumventing copyright protection Linux is cool. Windows Media Player on Vista won't even play copyrighted movies, I tried to play a dvd that I purchased myself and it refused, that was the last straw, then I decided to stay away from Vista for a while.
cheers
-B
hmmmm well there are possitives and negatives to the scripting part of jaws. However I think they both balance themselves out.
yay i like burncdcc, great ap for 68k, but its worth mensioning that more comon applications like nero and alcohol can burn iso's.
Can i add that having tryed v7 on about 8 different setups that it has never worked with orca? It just hangs when it logs you out. This has happened on a live cd, in a vm and on a installed os, both using ubiquity and wubi.
I'd really like for it to work though, but yeah i just use 6.10.
Linux won't ever be adopted by the mainstream user, apple will beat it.
companies like kernomical might get excited when dell says that they'll ship ubuntu on some of there machines, but in reality the deal means very little.
Why? because theres very little appeal for the end user to use ubuntu. Granted, the price of a ubuntu pc might be less than a xp one, but bair in mind here that they use oem xp's and that they will get them cheaper than your local computer builder can due to the amount of pc's that they output which actually means that the price difference shouldn't be that much, also add in the fact that they entered into a agreement with kernomical to provide comertial ubuntu support which will need to be funded from the price of the machines.
Also, compatability will be a problem. Lets say that the good meaning mum buys an entry level pc which has ubuntu on it for her son for school work. What happens when all of his classmates are playing something like unreal or world of warcraft?
Most users will just see ubuntu as crap because its not like windows.
"I love jaws if I have to use windows, and I've never used any other windows based products to compare." then sadly saying this would make you quite short minded. When i first started using a computer, i was sat down with a copy of jfw, windoweyes and hal and then I disided. Because of that, i could validedly say that jfw was crap in comparisan to hal because i'd actually tryed it. Now i no you haven't entered into any of the screenreader bashing so far, but i bet if I was to say that i use hal you'd be the first to go along with everyone else and nock it.
Now one of the best operating systems that ms made was neptune, but sadly it was never released.
I use linux for some day to day stuff and hope to adopt it at the point when windows is not safishiant for what i do on computers.
I also use it for getting sam files lol.
Just a note heer: in the instructions given in the first part here, where it says to use ctrl alt esc, you need to use ctrl alt backspace instead.
sorry I made a mistake, I knew that. wasn't thinking when I posted
I've heard a number of people complain about Jaws locking up - not just itself but the machine - and I can't say I'm impressed with the voices on the standard distribution. I'm also not terribly impressed with the conduct of certain manufacturers attacking others over fictitious trademark issues. However, to be fair, that last complaint is not the fault of Jaws or those who actually coded it.
My personal preference is for the MBROLA range of voices - not sure if those are importable into Jaws or not - and for phonetic synthesizers rather than word-driven ones. I'm interested in what the next generation of systems will be like, which are supposed to model the vocal chords themselves. Phonetic synthesizers date back to the late 1970s and word-driven speech synthesizers existed even in the late 60s. This is very dated technology, no matter how good it has become. It might be what we're stuck with, for now, but if there's nothing else in your life that archaic, why use it?
Oh, and a quick test for those using synthesizers. If ghoti sounds like fish, at least the screen reader has a first-year University reading age, which is better than most.