[NFBCS] Looking for suggestions on a good Linux distribution

[Joseph C. Lininger]

Greetings,
There are lots of Linux distributions out there, and which you should 
use depends on how you intend to use Linux and with your comfort level 
with Linux. I personally use one called Arch Linux. It has a s"start 
with little installed out of the box" and a DIY mentality which I find 
appealing. Other popular distributions include Fedora, Debian, and 
Ubuntu. (These are all more popular than Arch) There are also Linux 
distributions that focus specifically on accessibility. These are 
usually (possibly always) one of the more popular distributions such as 
Debian which have been customized to include accessibility enhancements. 
brltty will work with pretty much any distribution. For command line 
screen reader, you'll probably want to use Speakup which comes with most 
of today's Linux kernels. You'll need some other software to get that 
working, namely espeak or espeak-ng (software speech) and espeakup (ties 
espeak to speakup.)

To answer your question about booting both Linux and Windows, you'll 
most likely end up using a boot loader that lets you choose which 
operating system to boot (and selects a default after a few seconds if 
you don't pick one.) Many of today's machines don't technically *have* 
to be configured with this setup since you can use the EFI bios to 
choose an OS if you really want to, but most find it convenient to go 
ahead and use the boot loader from one of the operating systems to do it 
since it makes things easier. I personally use the grub boot loader, 
which is available with pretty much any modern Linux distribution.

Hope these general pointers help you on your journey.
Joe

On 7/30/2021 12:50 AM, rjaquiss via NFBCS wrote:
> Hello:
>
>       I am thinking of taking a PC and having Linux installed on it. I use
> both speech and a braille display. My braille display connects via USB.
> Since there are a number of Linux distributions, I am wondering which one
> would be the best. Years ago, I did a lot of work on a Unix box using the
> CLI interface. I do know about Brltty.
> What software is used to have both a bootable Windows 10 and Linux on the
> same box? Thanks in advance.
>
> Regards,
>
> Robert
>
>
>
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