Perhaps the salient point of the Newsforge article (and I try,
successfully I hope, to tie this back into a reasonably on-topic
point at the end of this post) is that it's very difficult to find
documentation and get help for FOSS in general. Case in point,
original speakup links seem to be dead. There are tutorials scattered
around but most seem out of date or, at the very least, confusing.
All Will Thoms wanted was a list of resources for Linux access. We
seem to agree that those resources are around...but where are they?
It's hard to imagine an average user (and not a power-user like
Cheryl or Travis) understanding the blinux faq: http://leb.net/blinux/
blinux-faq.html and moving easily from there to unassisted
installation. A quick Google search doesn't produce any obvious
answers that I can see (and the same goes for information on
installing Windows without sighted assistance). Where's the
independence? When posting the article link originally, I thought it
might be valuable to draw a contrast between the realities of blind
access for FOSS vs. Mac OS X. The Mac OS X integrated, single-
bellybutton, turnkey approach (without significant additional costs
e.g. expensive screen readers on Windows or expensive hardware
synthesizers on Linux) seems to be quickly proving itself more
practical, broad-accessbility and independence-promoting vs. the
current FOSS state-of-affairs with scattered, often badly-documented
resources maintained with varying degrees of frequency/efficiency or
the high cost of access on Windows. I'm not suggesting that everybody
should use a Mac...but I am suggesting that folks developing for the
other platforms (as well as educators and legislators) would do well
to take a closer look at what Apple has done. Reasonable cost and
independence-for-the-average-user should be the central themes of any
arguments promoting the Mac as a platform for use by the blind (and
arguments for improving the state-of-affairs on the other popular
computing platforms).
This article on 'Open Source for the Visually Impaired' originally
posted in 2000 - makes some relevant arguments:
http://linux.omnipotent.net/article.php?article_id=10059
There seems to be nothing at the link for the "Ocularis" Linux
distribution mentioned in the above article.
http://ocularis.sourceforge.net/
Joe
On Mar 20, 2006, at 3:09 PM, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
Hmm, interesting. Both linux and Macosx can be installed without
sighted assistance. I'm assuming his issue with linux has to do
with Italian, though I'm not quite sure why that would hinder
whatever braille system he's using from being detected. I even
heard on another list that if a certain file is put together--don't
remember the details--one can also install Windows independently.
--
Cheryl
"Where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also".
