The accessibility through remote may be from windows, but since windows is
not serving it up except through special calls, we are actually using what
is provided on the host.
Johnnie Apple Seed
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenny Hitt" <kenny@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Linux for blind general discussion" <blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: Solaris 10 released,with accessibility built-in! Also FreeTTS
1.2 released. (fwd)
Hi.
On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 11:55:15AM -0800, Peter Korn wrote:
Hi Michael,
I am from Sun, so I don't qualify as the "non-Sun" person you are
seeking.
I also am sighted, so perhaps don't qualify as a sufficient authority by
that measure. However, I may have some useful information, so I'll
chime
in...
The priority for our first release, as informed by the letter of the
rules
in Section 508, was a usable, accessible desktop for end-users. This
specifically meant that for the first release, accessible installation
was
a "nice to have", not a "must have". Solaris, unlike Linux, doesn't
have
a
notion of virtual text consoles in which you can run Speakup or BrlTTY.
You can run BrlTTY on Solaris (we have been shipping them on the Solaris
Companion CD for a little while now), but it doesn't run at as low a
level
in Solaris as they do in Linux. See
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/search/richb?q=Companion&c= for a blog entry
from Rich Burridge on the contents of the Solaris Companion CD.
GUI accessibility in Solaris 10 is very likely better than what most
folks
in the community have experienced. This isn't because we've "held stuff
back", or "added secret sauce". Rather it is becaus there are a *lot*
of
components to put together to make this all work, and we've been
building
and testing the particular collection of versions for a while now in
both
Solaris and our upcoming Java Desktop System release 3 for Linux. Many
of
the problems folks have encountered are due in part to older, or
mis-matched versions of things. Web browsing in particular is
significant
better using the Sun Mozilla branch (we've gotten about half of our
accessibility patches put back to Mozilla trunk, with more going in
every
week; but the most accessible Mozilla on UNIX remains our branch, which
is
what we ship in Solaris 10).
Are you still forced to read a web page line by line? If so, anyone
using speech for output will take much longer than they would with
lynx in a text console. Even on pages that work well with Mozilla, I
find it much faster to read the page with lynx.
So Solaris 10 is probably "beyond what is available in Linux" from the
point of view of what most people have put together in Linux. But
strictly
speaking, *everything* we've done in Solaris 10 is "available" in
Linux -
you just have to do a bunch of work to put it together (and of course,
that
work is part of the value of going to a commercial, supported, UNIX
distro
and why many folks will pay Sun $50 for the retail edition of the Sun
Java
Desktop System).
But... I wouldn't say that the shipping Solaris 10 is dramatically
beyond
what many have experienced on their own with Linux. Perhaps others will
disagree - I've spent very little time trying to roll my own stuff on
top
of Debian or Fedora or what-have-you. Even so, this is a *first*
release.
Compared to outSPOKEN 1.0, or JAWS 1.0, I think this is far superior,
and
far more functional. And I personally know a number of folks who were
pretty successful with outSPOKEN 1.0 (and especially outSPOKEN 1.1).
And
certainly compared to the built-in GUI access options on Windows, there
is
no question as to how much more functional Solaris 10 is. But we
certainly
have a good distance to go before we can rival JAWS 5.x, or ZoomText
8.x,
or... And a user who is very comfortable and productive in the Linux
console will probably find they prefer that environment - at least for
many/most things. One blind user data-point to counter that: someone
on
one of the GNOME accessibility mailing lists said he has moved over to
Gnopernicus and Mozilla exclusively for web browsing now, and no longer
uses lynx. As they say, your mileage may vary...
I agree Gnome accessibility is better than what I had in Windows 3.11
and JFW 2.0 back in 1996. I have switch to using Gnome for all my multi
media playback. Totem rocks!
I find some types of file management are easier in nautilus than
they would be using wild cards in a terminal. I've also noticed I
usually have few problems with accessibility when I try a new gtk 2 app.
I have my system configured to boot to a gdm login and I always keep a
Gnome session running in addition to text consoles.
However, I still don't think it is possible for a blind person using
speech output to be productive using only Gnome and Gnopernicus.
I know that will eventually change, but it isn't there yet.
You should be aware the person whoclames to be using Gnopernicus
and Mozilla instead of Lynx spends very little time running Linux.
Based on his mail headers and earlier posts from him, he spends
most of his time in MS Windows. I believe he uses Windows for his job,
so his Linux experience is only for short times on limited occasions.
For accessibility purposes, I don't believe controlling a Linux box from
a Windows counts as Linux experience. True you know Unix commands, but
the accessibility is still from Windows.
Kenny
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