Helping Blind Friend Move to Linux

[mooreted]

Well, after reading some posts, I guess I will have to tell my friend to stick with Windows until Linux gets more mature accessibility applications. He is a student at a university and can't spend much time futzing around. He needs something that actually works all the time. Oh well.

[jonathonblake]

He needs something that actually works all the time. Oh well.

My housemate wants to switch to Linux, because Windows is so unstable, that it is worse than useless. This is a system that was designed, and configured to be used by a blind person.

The only thing that is holding things back, is an inability to dual boot, for those rare occasions when Windows is required.

xan

jonathon

[octathlon]

The way things stand today, if you need a screen reader, I think your best bet is a Mac. It has VoiceOver included and completely integrated with the operating system, and it's all very stable.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/accessibility.html

http://www.screenlessswitchers.com/

[AnRa]

You may find this useful: ADRIANE (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html) ;)

[jonathonblake]

The way things stand today, if you need a screen reader, I think your best bet is a Mac

Interesting.
The good software in the field my housemate is in, is written for the Mac. Historically, Apple hasn't had functional a11y tools.


You may find this useful: ADRIANE

I wasn't aware of that project.
I didn't find the Live CD to download. :(

xan

jonathon

[octathlon]

You may find this useful: ADRIANE (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html) ;)
I've heard about that off and on for some time, but I've never found anything to download or seen any indication of its status or when it will be available. It sounds interesting, though.

[bigboy_pdb]

Regarding the release date of ADRIANE, it said the following on the site:

A ready-to-run live cd is not available yet (prospected first release: 3rd quarter of 2007)


The following page looked like it might be worth reading:
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Screen_reader_applications_in_openSUSE

[Pipistrelle]

I'm totally blind, and I'm only very comfortable with a GUI. I'm very hopeful that with Firefox 3.0 and Orca, Ubuntu will have as much functionality as I'm experiencing with Windows. BTW, in all fairness, I'd suspect the instability not to be inherent in Windows/screen reader setup, but perhaps there is a problem with the configuration on the specific computer. I'm still using a three-year-old computer with Windows and JAWS, but I like to explore all options, including low-cost and more secure ones. :)

Teresa

[jonathonblake]

I'm very hopeful that with Firefox 3.0 and Orca,

There are a couple of extensions that turn Firefox into a self-voicing program on both Linux and Windows:
* Fire Vox;
* Accessibar;

I installed one of them on my housemate's computer. It kicks in when JAWS turns off,to the dismay of my housemate. (I"m not sure why the dismay, because it means that I don't have read the page out aloud.)

I briefly installed an extension that gave every link a number. Whilst it works, with more than about 50 links on a page, navigation becomes extremely difficult.

xan

jonathon