Category: Geeks r Us
Hello folks,
I had an interest in Linux several years ago. However I lost interest because of GUI accessibility problems.
Now I am wondering if this area in Linux accessibility has improved since I departed the platform. If so, is there an email list I can join to relearn Linux?
I bought a new computer and thinking of installing Ubuntu on my retired laptop and see if I can relearn this system.
my retired machine is a dual core with 2MHZ processor, 4 GB of ram, 130 GB of hard disk. It is a 32 bit system. Is this configuration sufficient for installing Ubuntu?
I hope to get the feedback of the Linux users.
Personally, I do not know that much regarding Linux. I did install it once alongside Windows and messed around with Orca. I'd say it is pretty accessible. Perhaps just performing a Google search for Orca would help? You should be able to run Linux fine with that configuration.
I've heard that red hat is pretty accessible.
There are different mailing list groups and facebook groups on Linux accessibility. I know
there are few blind people using Linux as their main system, and works pretty well.
Hey Cris. I told my husband about this topic. He knows something about it, as he's involved with several of the accessible distributions. He says he'll come on here with more info.
Hi there,
I'm on the development team of one accessible linux distro called Sonar, which is basically an arch based distro. There are a lot of good things going for it accessibility wise. We're working on a new release with a slightly different base rather than the manjaro arch we're based on now. The mate desktop gui works well, and those who use gnome seem to be happy with it. Also, there's Vinux, based on Ubuntu trusty 14.4. They offer 3 different desktop environments for you to choose from. Again, I use mate, but there is also unity and gnome.
The web page for Sonar is: sonargnulinux.com
For vinux, go to vinuxproject.org
I'll be glad to help where I can. The vinux mailing list is on google groups. The sonar mailing list is accessible from sonar's home page.
Hope this helps.
If neither of those meet your needs, try ubuntu mate, or even talking arch or antergos.
That should be enough to get you going.
Good luck.
Thanks folks. Your comments are very helpful. My question to Southern Prince, Sorry I do not know your name, my question is: How do I determine which distribution of Linux is the most accessible? I am also not sure what are the limitations caused by the age of my retired laptop. It is a 32 bit Dual core with 2 GHZ processor, only 4 GB of Ram and only 130 GB of hard disk. What is the most suitable distribution of Linux to the configuration of my laptop?
I hope to install Linux only once and get to learn it and use it, instead of playing with different distributions.
Well, unfortunately, sometimes the only way you can see what distro really works for you is to play around with them. But given your specs and stuff, I'd say try vinux first. I'd point you to Sonar's mate edition, but some updates just put us out of commission for a short time. Vinux has two different versions, one a 64 bit, and a 32 bit. For you, I'd go 32. Once you get the install done, and you log in for the first time, after entering your username and password, tab to the session options button and choose mate. It'll take up less memory for you.
You can join the vinux support group at vinux-support+subscribe@googlegroups.com.
Hope this helps.
I suggest to start with Vinux, and get a feel around the system before moving on to
something else. At least with Vinux, it is fairly simple and straight forward. With your
computer, it should run rather smoothly. When i first started, i have Vinux install on my
Asus EEEPC 2010 netbook. It wasn't the greatest netbook by any means of imagination,
and it does run ok-ish on the netbook.
The community for Vinux is great. They are very helpful and i think its definitely a good
place to start.
Thanks Joanne and Southern Prince. I will give Vinux another try.
I tried Vinux six years ago or so, and at that time I got extremely frustrated and ditched Linux altogether. It crashed so often and ran extremely sluggishly on my machine. I am sure it has seen a lot of improvements in the last six years and probably worth a second try.
Regards,
Cris
Does vinux have built in speech or would someone need an external source?
As far as I understand. Vinux has a built in speech and a screen reader. It utilizes your system sound card.
I have a couple questions about Vinux. First the easy one: tell me about
desktops. What are the differences between / advantages of mate, gnome and
others? How do I switch between desktops?
Now the more difficult question: I moved recently and Vinux won't connect to
any of the wi-fi networks. I know the wi-fi card works because the Windows
partition connects without problems. I've tried connecting with both the GUI and
command-line tools. Neither works, and the GUI strangely doesn't show any
network names, just says they're all out of range.
All right, here we go. I'm gonna try and get these answered to the best of my ability. Ready, breathe! LOL! Vinux, and Sonar as well, for that matter, come with talking insallers, which do work with orca, the linux screen reader, and espeak. It's correctly stated that these work with your system sound card. No external synth is needed, although i'd love to be able to play with a few, but I'm an old techy. Any how, as far as the desktops go, all I can tell you there, is that they just drive a little differently. I personally prefer mate, but many like gnome and unity. In the session options manager, unity is the one that shows up as "ubuntu default". I can't give you a really objective response on those since I really don't like the other two.. As far as your wireless problem, It's hard as heck to connect to wifi from mate, at least in vinux. Sonar can do it quite easily. . I'd suggest logging into the unity desktop to work with that. The vinux wiki has a section on wireless setup, and that's the approach they take. As much as I don't like the unity desktop, when I'm doing wireless, I switch to it and use their walkthrough. I'd suggest doing that first, and see if you get any closer to your goal. Oh, how to switch between them. when you get the login screen, first enter your password, then tab once and hit enter on the session options button. The three desktops are under there. That's your linux report for today. For your linux machine, I'm Southern Prince! Hahaha!
Voyager, did you get your wifi issue fixed? Chris, how goes your vinux trial?
I'll try and be around this week for help if needed.
I think someone is coming over this afternoon to help me fix it. I found a Vinux wireless setup Wiki page but was unable to follow the instructions. Basically, I opened the menu it said to open, but the option it said to select either didn't exist or couldn't be expanded. I'm not sure whether I found an outdated page or I've messed up my system. Could you post a link?
Hmm, I didn't think about that. I'll see what I can do.
Here's the link I found. Hope it helps.
http://wiki.vinuxproject.org/connect_to_wireless
Yup, same link I found where instructions didn't work. The menu item it said to find and expand didn't exist.
Why is Vinux using Ubuntu 14.04 when Ubuntu is now up to 16.04? And is there any reason I shouldn't just switch to plain Ubuntu? I hear I won't have to struggle with basic services like wireless.
Well, if you wanted to, you could try ubuntu mate and see if that'd serve you any better.
Sorry those instructions didn't work for you. They did for me, and I just used 'em maybe 3 weeks ago. I'm not sure what's going on. My next suggestion would be to join the vinux support list and ask there.
Did that already. I think I'm just going to have to install something else. I can create a bootable disk but I don't know how to install it without sighted help.
To answer one of your questions I missed, since i'm not on the vinux development team, I dunno why they still use ubuntu 14.4. Seems I heard 16.whatever had some accessibility issues. Rumor is, they're switching to Fedora. I'll post more here as I have verifiable info. I'm also working with the Manjaro development team to get ready to create new Sonar images, so maybe in a few days I can suggest Sonar for you.
You'll see me post to Vinux support some times. I'm the only Mark on there as far as I know. LOL! Ok, I'm out.
I use arch for my distro of choice
The problem with arch, especially for possible beginners is that it's pretty hard to install. I'm doing some testing on gnome based images for Sonar. i'm hoping to be able to test a mate one very soon.
I'm back with an update. My Sonar image booted, but the accessible installer is still as of yet missing. On another note, I founde a distro that plays all my zone sounds, and I can get both rsgames and voxin to work pretty flawlessly. That would be ubuntu mate.
Even though I help develop sonar, I like to put info out there as I discover it, even if it's another distro. Back with more as I get it. I'm gonna go find that pesky missing installer...maybe. :)
Well, as of yet, I haven't found the missing installer. I've done a little more work with Ubuntu mate, though, and could actually pretty comfortably recommend it. RsGames installs on it fairly easily, and there's even a package that has a couple text games you can play.
The one issue I'm trying to solve, though, is connecting wirelessly. I'll solve that one tomorrow. My brain hurts!
Hello folks, it's your friendly linux guy, at it again. Got an update for ya. Since I last wrote, two things have happened. Vinux and Sonar have merged, and I'm still a part of that development team, so I'll keep you posted as the new Vinux moves forward. The current version of vinux, by the way, now has working zone sounds, which pleases me no end. I had written a report to my fellow team members a few days ago that the sounds weren't working when I'd log in here, and someone fixed them. Cool! Vinux will eventually switch to a Fedora base, and as soon as I've seen test images, I'll come in and let folks know what the new vinux will look like. Stay tuned!
Interest in a Vinux topic on this board? I'll generate one later this week if there's enough interest.
Accessibility has indeed come a long way, but why should users who are blind constantly face being unable to upgrade because accessibility broke for some reason? This alone would discourage me from using it on a production system. After all, that's what Linux is best for, right? Security?
I'm not aware of Vinux users being unable to upgrade. The Sonar distro had that problem at the end, but that was largely Manjaro's fault, which is why they've merged with Vinux. If you are aware of upgrade problems in vinux, I'll take it to the rest of the team. Lemme know.
So I could use some help starting speech on Ubuntu Mate.
I have a boot disk. I know it started because I got the Ubuntu drum start sound, but Orca doesn't start when I press super-alt-s. Suggestions?
Hmm, try alt f2, orca. Failing that, alt f2 orca --replace. If that isn't working, I have no idea. I've got a test system I can try to install Ubuntu mate on sometime this week if you need help lookin in to it.
Hmm.. thank you for this board, I have a netbook asus eepc 10005. I want to
install linix as the main os. I'll keep the board updated after I'm able to replace
the battery and power adapter.
SF
Hmm, lemme know what versions you wanna work with once you've got a working machine, and I'll do my best to help. I'll probably be out of pocket most of next week, because that's my chemo treatment week. *bluh*
Hello,
I actually use Linux as my daily driver and would be happy to answer any questions people have. I use Linux to perform all tasks such as e-mail, web browsing, office, and instant messaging. I have a few virtual machines of Windows that I run in Qemu which is a virtualizer on linux to perform some job related tasks. I skimmed over this board and will try to answer some of the questions that came up. I am willing to offer support via the Telephone or any of the other voice platforms for Orca or general troubleshooting for Linux as time in my schedule permits as I know it can be frustrating to get started with a new system.
Post 4:
For specific lists, I use the Debian accessibility mailing list which is for talking about accessibility topics related to Debian. The URL for this list is https://lists.debian.org/debian-accessibility/. There are very knowledgeable command line and graphical users on this list. I also use the Orca mailing list which is designed for talking specifically about Orca which is the graphical interface reader. The URL for this list is https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Post 7:
I would agree with others here that some distribution with mate is a good starting point for your laptop. I would recommend against picking any distribution with the Unity desktop as it is being dropped for Gnome soon in Ubuntu and will therefore likely not be included in any of the mainstream distributions any more. This means that you would have to relearn another desktop once Unity is no longer in these distros. I have a laptop here that has a t2080 Pentium dual core 32 bit processor with 2 GB of ram and I ran Debian Linux as well as FreeBSD on that laptop quite nicely. Both Gnome or Mate are good choices for desktops and I would suggest one of these two as a starting point.
Post 11:
The included speech in Vinux was Espeak last time I used it and this is likely still the case since it is based on Ubuntu. Ubuntu itself is based on Debian which I previously mentioned is my distro of choice. In Debian, there are other synthesizers available and I would assume that these work in Ubuntu as well. I have used Flite and Festival with good results. Debian also configures braille support automatically for usb braille displays if the BRLTTY package is installed and I would assume that Ubuntu and therefore Vinux does the same.
Post 13:
I will try to give some info on both of your questions.
1. Gnome is a desktop that has been developed on Linux for many years. For many years, this desktop offered an interface that was very simple with a notification area, some menus, and a panel that showed running applications. A few years ago, an effort was started within the Gnome project to develop a new 3d based desktop environment. It is very accessible, however, the way the desktop is navigated by a keyboard user was drastically altered. It isn't any more or less accessible, just different. Some people I have met enjoy it quite a lot and some do not like the change. This goes for both blind and sighted users that I spoke with about their desktop preference. I personally found it to be very pleasant and have it installed on one of my computers as the primary desktop although my main computer is running Mate at the moment. Because Gnome uses 3d affects, you will want to have proper 3d graphics drivers and a 3d capable graphics card. I have used machines with older Intel integrated graphics such as intel GMA950 and MHD4500 with no problems. All modern linux distros include graphics drivers so this should be no problem unless you have an Nvidia card which can cause issues. AMD graphics cards require non-free firmware to operate. If you pick a Linux distro that doesn't include these firmware files, you will have issues with these distros as well. In Ubuntu, these files are included by default and on Debian, they are very easy to install from a non-free package repository. A package repository is simply a download location for the system to fetch extra software and updates that is run by the Linux distrobution
Mate was created as a continuation of the gnome 2 desktop when Gnome 3 was created. and offers the same interface that Gnome 2 offered for many years. It is regularly updated and supports new Linux technologies. It has been said by some of my sighted friends that visually, it looks a bit like Windows 2000 or XP. I would say that from a functional standpoint, it is similar to these systems. Expect resource usage with no applications open to be in the neighborhood of Windows XP. I would recommend it for older systems as resource usage is very minimal. One of my computers is from 2006 and has a single core AMD Turion 64 processor with 1 GB of ram and Mate runs quite nicely on this machine.
2. To answer your question about Wireless, it would be very useful to know what model wireless card that you have in your laptop. Linux supports many wireless cards, however, some do not work without closed vendor drivers. You should be able to obtain this info from the Windows Device manager. It is also possible that the wireless card is disabled. Try pressing the button to enable and disable wireless on your laptop. Make sure that the wireless card is enabled before you shut down Windows and boot into Linux. Many vendors use non-standard implementations for interfacing the hardware hotkeys on the laptop such as Wifi and Volume with the operating system. Linux has support for hotkeys on many laptops, however, not all of these are supported. It would be useful to see the output of dmesg which is a command that can be typed on the terminal to display the message buffer from the Kernel. This would allow me to determine if your wireless interface is being initialized and what errors might be occurring. I would suggest using a service like pastebin and linking it from the form as it is going to be a lot of information. If you need help with the terminal, post again and I can try to give some instructions.
Post 27:
Try holding down the Control, Shift and Alt keys while pressing Tab. Keep pressing and releasing tab while holding down the other keys. When Orca says Top Panel, release the keys and press Tab until you land on the Wifi icon and press enter. This will all work assuming that Ubuntu Mate uses a version of Mate without customizations. I will verify this when I do my install of Ubuntu Mate.
post 32:
It seems like there is high interest in Ubuntu mate as it is a good starter distro. I will download it and install it on a machine so that I can hopefully be of more help. It should be very similar to Debian once installed as Ubuntu copies many packages from Debian unmodified, however, the installation process is very different as Debian uses a textbased installer for accessibility that offers many customization's because during the install, you decide whether the install will be geared towards a server or desktop and pick exactly what you want installed. Ubuntu Mate is more geared towards those who want to get a desktop system up and running quickly and uses a graphical installer. For this reason, the number of questions asked by the installer are fewer, however, less customization is offered. Linux is all about choice and neither installer approach is wrong. One should pick the approach that is most appropriate for their use case.
Post 34:
Post back with any troubles you have with the hardware and I will do my best to help.
One thing I would like to clarify from my last post is in post 13 I realized I had not explained non-free firmware very well.
As hardware has become more complicated, the trend has been toward implementing logic for hardware devices like graphics cards and wifi drivers in firmware as opposed to actual circuitry or rom chips on the device itself. Basically, every time the computer is booted, firmware must be loaded onto a small ram chip on the card before the operating system can talk to the card and the card itself can perform its normal functionality. This provides advantages for the hardware vendors because they can release new firmware that fixes bugs. This also saves them money as they can skip implementing expensive rom chips and discrete logic into the hardware. In Windows, this firmware loading is done by the driver that is provided by the manufacture every time the system boots. In the case I specifically spoke of, that would be AMD providing a graphics driver that loads this firmware onto the card every time Windows boots. In the case of AMD, this firmware allows the card to offer 3d functionality for visuals as well as advanced power management functionality like lowering voltages of graphics shader clocks when the computer is idle as well as shutting down unused parts of the chip usually saving 3 to 5 watts. Without the firmware, AMD graphics cards provide basic 2d functionality via the VESA graphics standard.
In Linux, the Linux kernel takes care of loading firmware onto cards. Other hardware like some wireless cards also require this firmware. Some linux vendors do not include this firmware because they take the approach that no closed source software can be tolerated. I personally take a pragmatic approach in that I use open source software when possible but will use closed software when it provides me more functionality or helps me accomplish work. Ubuntu includes this firmware in a default install to give the user a good out of box experience while other distributions like Debian make it available in a non-free repository allowing the user to choose whether they want to use it. A third type of distribution such as Trisquel which holds a strong stance on open source does not make the firmware available at all. Again, Linux is all about choice. You have to decide how you feel on the issue of firmware when making your choice and choose a distribution accordingly.
VESA is an old 2D standard that dates back to MS-Dos. As a result, it can't be used to run 3D desktops like Gnome and Unity efficiently.
I am beginning work on creating a tutorial on installing Ubuntu-mate using Orca with speech and navigating around the desktop. I plan to create a followup tutorial on using Linux applications with Orca. Does anyone have web hosting space that they could offer? I suspect the files would be no more than 100 mb or so since they will be mp3. I have many projects right now and have no interest in maintaining a website.
I think you answered the questions well, people should be able to get started, using your posts in this board. I, too, offer my help with getting your GNU/Linux setup going. emailing me is best way to reach me.
When I played with the latest Ubuntu Mate, the ctrl+alt+tab keystroke did not work, even when the shortcut was bound. Instead, I used ctrl+alt+esc, when the desktop was focused, to cycle between desktop and panels. That said, it's still a good starting place.
As some of you might know, I, too, use GNU/Linux as my mainstay. I have Trisquel 8 on a netbook, a derivative of Arch on a laptop, and Debian on something else. I will put Debian onto my next computer, when it arrives.
I have made some audio tutorials on using the current stable release of Trisquel, also a couple on Mate desktop.
AM_Dxer, may I suggest using a mediagoblin instance for posting your stuff! Set up an account on this one. I think you'll like it.
glad to see the linux interest picking up. I haven't had anything new to contribute as of late, but imagine I'll be in soon with something interesting. Again, glad to see other linux users out there.
Southern Prince, I think you and I met in the Sonar GNU/Linux community; didn't realize you were lso a zoner.
Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if we did. Darn shame about Sonar really. I hope this murger is all they hope it to be but I'm not so sure. You'd have seen me on the list there as Mark Peveto
Let's just say I have "guarded optimism" about the Sonar->Vinux murger. I'm not sur4e an accessibility-specialized distro is necessary anymore, especially if you choose Gnome as your gui, or something like emacspeak, fenrir, or speakup for chi access, assuming that is your primary interaction. I'm glad to report that Trisquel 8.0 has a well-configured Mate desktop and orca running from the start. I think Debian is as good as it gets, from startup to shutdown.
I've never installed debian. I'm on the vinux team, as I was the Sonar dev team, but that's about as far as it goes at this point. How'd you install your debian?
The debian installer has a speech option. At the boot prompt, where one would enter kernel parameters, I typed a single 's', which launched speakup for the installer console. If I'd had braille, that would have started, as well as the speech. Once speakup got going, I was able to follow all the instructions. The installed system, (I chose Mate), had a talking login prompt and a fully-functional orca. Debian does a good job of preconfiguring that stuff. Reminder: this was not the full Mate live image, but, the net install. I don't think the live cd have orca. Bad mistake, Messeers Debian. LOL.
What about console speech? Did you access that? Sorry my response has been so slow. Last week was chemo week. Bleh.
Well, I done it. I installed Debian on my test machine to see if I liked it. So far, I do. Do you know what display manager they're using for login? I'd like to make it autologin if possible. I got console speech going, too. Now I'm gonna shoot for putting it on one of my laptops. Thanks for your help on this one.
I have Ubuntu MATE set up but I'm having hell with wifi. I've made the
necessary additions to /etc/interfaces and made sure that wpa_supplicant is
installed. Internet still doesn't come up
try installing wicd and see if that helps you any. I had trouble with wifi, too. Arguing with it now in fact on one of my debian installs.
I have no internet on that machine since ethernet isn't an option. So is there a
safe way to install WICD without using the package manager i.e. download
necessary files on another machine and transfer them with a flash drive?
Hmm, you'd almost wanna google wicd, and see if they have a package that's downloadable for flash drive use. I'm not aware that there is, but I haven't had to look for it either since I've had working internet connections on any machine I've used thanks to a wired connection. On another note folks, I think instead of continuing to tack on to this thread, I'll create a linux helpdesk topic we can move all this to. That way we don't hafta search through all this. I'll go do it now.
Voyager:
I would recommend not adding items to /etc/interfaces because NetworkManager which is the networking tool installed by default configures interfaces automatically.
/etc/interfaces is really best used to set up networks for a permanent setup such as a server in a server room where the devices connected to the PC remain the same.
I remember Wicd-gtk not being as accessible as NetworkManager so I would stick with NetworkManager if possible.
Would you be comfortable talking on Skype or something? It would probably be easier to sort this out via voice talking.
Southern Prince
Debian uses Lightdm by default. I am posting a link to the arch wiki below where enabling auto-login for this display manager is discussed. I can't guarantee it will work because I have not tested these instructions myself, however, the Arch wiki is usually very accurate and up to date.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LightDM#Enabling_autologin
Ah, lightdm. Cool. I think I remember what to do, but will snag this link just in case. We'll continue this on the helpdesk topic I created. Yall have a good one.
I made it work! Network-manager only showed a wired connection for some reason. I instead used commandline tools and determined that the apostrophe in my essid was causing a problem. So I changed the name of my personal hotspot to something with no special chars or spaces. Then I updated the interfaces file and restarted the interface and everything just worked.
I’m trying to install fedora into a vm, and can’t seem to get orca to start.
Hello,
I hope this discussion is still open.
I'm very curious about Linux, but also a total newbie. I've used Windows all my digital life, which started in 2002. I'm trying to read about both Vinux and Sonar. The problem is, the sonar website doesn't seem to exist anymore. When I go to sonargnulinux.com, I get the following message:
This page isn’t working
sonargnulinux.com is currently unable to handle this request.
HTTP ERROR 500
Does this mean that the project does not exist anymore?
Thanks and sorry if this has been answered before.
Vlad.