Sinse we're on the subject of gui linux, any opinions on how gnome compares to using emacspeak with an appropriate windo manager? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 12:58 PM Subject: Re: Demonstrating the power of Linux for blind people. > Hi, Amy: > > Answers in line below ... > > Ghoston, Ameenah writes: > > 1. I want to set up a Linux box with speakup > > Gnome, and KDE. > > The "everything" choice in the Speakup Modified Fedora will give you > that without additional knowledge or effort on your part. > > As an aside to the other debate that flamed over the weekend, this could > not be said of minimalist installation strategies. In other words, I > stand behind my assertion that there are advantages and disadvantes > either way--full blown or minimalist. > > Unfortunately, the issue is fairly moot as regards Gnome and KDE. You > are not likely to find much value there yet for the blind user, though > your results for low-vision will prove a bit better. > > > > > > > > 2. I have other projects to manage, so I don't want to spend a significant amount of time screwing with package depencies and what not. > > > The major Linux distributions generally now do an excellent job of > managing dependencies for you. The tool of choice on Fedora is called > yum. On Debian it's apt, for example. > > Once configured, yum works splendidly and can even set to run nightly > without user intervention. > > Please note that yum also supports package security through GPG keys. > > > 3. I am dealing with the gambit of blind computer users and so, I want a setup that would work for your average user. > I find this a most fascinating question. > > Who is an "average" user? More pertinant, what assumptions does this > "average" user bring to computing? I could go on at some length about > this subject, but will keep it brief. > > I believe their is no such thing as a generalized computing environment > that can be used without some education and training. Even something as > simple as the plain old touch tone phone requires training. Else, how > does one know that you must first hear a dialtone before pressing the > digits of a phone number successively? My mother can do that, but the > concept of a cell phone is very much beyond her as are answering > machines and voice mail in general. Is she average? Probably for her age > group, post 90 years of age, she is. > > To bring this home to "average" computing tasks, I would warrant > something as straight forward and simple as reading and responding to > email is far simpler on Linux than on Windows--but that requires that > someone knowledgable has set up the computer and email application > appropriately. > > Would it be "average" to set up a user account that does not boot into a > shell, but rather provides a brief menu of choices like: > > Email > Web > Internet Radio > > Ten years ago, many of us used dial up accounts with various isps that > provided exactly that. > > To finish up my view on this subject, the blind person's computer > interface cannot be graphical by definition, even when using a gui. If a > gui environment provides advantages, and I believe there are > demonstrable instances of advantage, these flow not from the graphical > nature of the gui, but from it's object oriented nature. > > An example of how this fails on the console is the background of text in > the cat or chain web browsers when dealing with a pop up or a drop down > dialog box. On the other hand, drop down dialogs are trivial to control > on Linux where they are not so trivial, imho, on gui platforms. Just an > example of the good and not so good in one place. > > Janina > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
