Hi! I used to call myself a "hard-core integrationist." Although I'd like to find myself a lable with a somewhat different emphasis, being less interested in conformity than in promoting equality in the number and quality of choices, that's still not a bad term for my take on the world. As a general approach to living in the world, therefore, I regard your points as very sound. I presently use a mainstream Linux distro, Fedora. I had to make this version of it accessible, though, and was only able to do it after I found the installation guide to a much earlier version. I could upgrade to this version only because I had a version modified with speakup. I believe it's correct to call this a specialized spin, and I also take it that the Fedora gang itself is not about to make speakup available in the standard versions any time soon, if at all. Is this very different from Vinux, or from Chris Brannon's Arch Linux CD? Is it--well--less integrated than using GRML, which I have used, or the latest Debian release? (Vinux is based on or is a variant of Ubuntu, after all, and may become one of Debian, both utterly mainstream distros.) Frankly, I thought it was pretty cool that Vinux gave me speech automatically when I booted up the CD: I didn't have to wait the right number of seconds to type just the right thing, but could sit and wait like my sighted peers. I didn't get as much boot-up info as they'd get, but that's not Vinux's fault. Maybe this is a quirk of mine, but Vinux also made it easier to get started with Orca, though I then went back to Fedora to go further. Since there seem to be a lot of specialized Linux distros, I doubt at this point that some made to work better than usual for blind people are necessarily nitches in second-class cybercitizenship. Regarding accessibility, I'm sure no better off if a mainstream distro drops it than if an accessible distro dies. We BrailleNote users know that special tools can have big problems, but I'd bet that those of the BrailleNote, for example, would be fewer or more manageable if its software was "free." That's my penny's worth for now. Al -----Original Message----- From: speakup-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Tony Baechler Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 7:22 AM To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. Subject: Vinux (was: Re: Accessible Ubuntu Installation?) Hi, I'm not trying to pick on this particular post or the person posting it. Is it just me, or do others here have a real problem with the idea of using a specialized distro for the blind? Let me explain what I mean. I am a very happy Debian user, although I've looked at Slackware, Red Hat, Gentoo and the Ubuntu live CD. All of those are mainstream distributions that happen to have accessibility support. Is it just my attitude or do others find using a special distro for the blind demeaning and insultive? Instead of expecting people to use a blind-friendly distro, why not use an already accessible distro such as Debian or Ubuntu in the first place? Besides generally getting a lot better support and a larger user base, there is no guarantee that a single developer will continue releasing new versions of the specialist distro in a timely manner. That happens with mainstream distros already. Also, granted I refuse to use the Vinux CD for the simple reason that I feel that I shouldn't have to use a specialist distro, but what does it offer that Ubuntu doesn't already? From what I've read, it has deleted graphics packages but still comes with the same accessibility features and packages. A good example of what I'm talking about is Oralux. It's now abandoned and apparently used its own packaging system. I was helping someone switch to grml because Oralux wasn't really working anymore and was abandoned. Why not just use Debian or grml in the first place? If someone could please explain why Vinux is so much better than a mainstream distro and why one should lower their standards to using a special distro primarily for the blind, I would be very interested. To me, this is like being required to use sighted help for something that the blind can do independently. Note that I'm not talking about using a screen reader or software to help the blind do a task easier, I'm only talking about locking oneself into a special distro that might not have long term support and is not designed for the general population. Georgina Joyce wrote: > But just having caught up I noticed that no-one seemed to mention vinux. > _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
