Hello, Thanks for all your suggestions. I have Debian Buster, command-line only. I may just wait until the next Debian testing is available and see if they include Mate. I will be using brltty, and no speech. This leaves one concern in my original message for discussion. I want Debian to boot into the command-line, but I want to have a command or script for starting the GUI when I need it. Thanks, John J. Boyer <john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Sun, Mar 01, 2020 at 01:54:07PM +0000, Linux for blind general discussion wrote: > Best I can tell, Mate 1.24 is currently available in both Debian > Testing(aka Bull's Eye which will eventually become Debian 11) and > Debian Unstable(aka Sid). > > It's unlikely something as big as a new version of Mate will make it > into Debian 9 aka Stretch or oldstable or Debian 10 aka Buster or > Stable as Debian priortizes stability over cutting edge, though it > might make it into backports(more likely for Buster than for Stretch, > but I confess to not knowing how long Debian supports Oldstable when a > new Stable is released). > > That said, while Orca, the primary, and possibly only, graphical > screen reader for Linux, is officially part of Gnome and persumably > optimized for that environment, and probably works so well with Mate > due to Mate's origins as a Gnome fork(as I understand it, Gnome 3 > brought many controversial changes to look and feel and Mate startedas > a way to keep the Gnome 2.x look and feel in an updated environment), > Orca should, in theory, be able to work with any GTK-based Desktop > Environment or Window Manager, though anything QT-based(KDE chief > among them) is currently a bit hit or miss. > > Gnome or Mate might be the best options for a beginner as they're the > most well documented DEs for using them with Orca, but Knoppix using a > combination of LXDE and Orca when launching a full Desktop seems to > work well, and I've heard people have had success with the ratpoison > window Manager. > > > _______________________________________________ > Blinux-list mailing list > Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > -- John J. Boyer Email: john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx website: http://www.abilitiessoft.org Status: Company dissolved but website and email addresses live. Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA Mission: developing assistive technology software and providing STEM services that are available at no cost _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list