[nfbcs] Accessible UNIX / LINUX Help Request

Wed May 21 13:52:48 UTC 2014

I'm not John, but I do use Linux/UNIX daily and have a few points to make.

First, Orca is not as stable as JAWS, Window Eyes, or voiceover.  It
keeps getting worked on, and I would call it usable, but you'll have
to get used to more crashes, hangs, inconsistant behavior, etc.

However, much of what gets done in Linux can be done from inside a
terminal -- think of a fancier cmd.exe window.

If you figure out that what you need linux for can be done from the
command line, this opens up two other options for you.

First, you can find out if your linux box allows incoming ssh
connections.  ssh is a method for accessing other, most UNIX like, hosts.

If your linux box allows incoming ssh connections, or if you can
enable them, then you can install an ssh client on your windows
machine and use jaws plus your ssh client to access your linux box.
You can have as many ssh sessions opened as you like, meaning you can
do many tasks at once.

Second, you can configure your linux box to not run X-windows, and
instead just run a terminal based screen reader.  There are two that I
know of.  Terminal based screen readers operate directly within the
terminal, behaving like DOS screen readers from 30 years ago.  Your
keystrokes get echoed, your output gets read to you, you can use
review cursors to explore the screen, you can use programs that divide
your physical screen into several logical ones, so you can do multiple
things at once, etc.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, feel free to ask about them
here and one of us can tell you more.

Take Care,

Jim

On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 09:10:17AM -0400, Ian  C. Bray via nfbcs wrote:
> John,
> 
> Is there a huge learning curve?
> I'm a JAWS user, but know nothing of ORCA and your suggeted reader.
> Are ORCA & Yours similar to operate??
> 
> Ian
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John G. Heim via nfbcs"
> <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> To: "NFB in Computer Science Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2014 1:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Accessible UNIX / LINUX Help Request
> 
> 
> >In my opinion, the best talking distro out there is sonar linux. I don't
> >know the URL, you can google that though. I was so impressed with sonar I
> >installed it on my
> >machine at home. And I do linux support for a living. I have not tried the
> >latest version though. They recently switched from basing their distro on
> >linux to basing it on arch (I think).
> >
> >If you need something based on ubuntu, you can try vinux.
> >
> >There is currently a huge debate going on on the orca list about
> >standardizing the key bindings to make it easier for users to switch from
> >Windows to linux. It has gotten heated enough that I took myself off the
> >list for a while. But I can virtually guarantee that there will be no
> >changes. I was about the only one who even seemed to think it was worth
> >considering. I'll admit that it would be wrong to change the orca keys to
> >be like those of jaws. What I would hope for, though, it to get people to
> >agree that if some standardization could be done, it would be a good
> >thing. People won't even go for that. It's ridiculous, IMO.
> >
> >
> >On May 17, 2014, at 9:34 AM, Ian C. Bray via nfbcs wrote:
> >
> >>Is there anyone out there who can help me
> >>get an UBUNTU  box started so that it has some varriant of
> >>speech that functions simillarly to JAWS?
> >>
> >>I-- have no idea where to start with this.
> >>
> >>Tami Jarvis spoke to me about ORCA-- and I have only been diving into my
> >>own SEMI-Professional Accessibility Needs recently.
> >>
> >>I have an ancient LAPTOP with 12.8 LTS on it, and I would like to get
> >>back to my Unix / Linux Tinkering.
> >>
> >>Mentorship & off-line phone conversations & EMail Groups / Listservs
> >>welcome.
> >>I do not do well in forums-- but I'm not saying I won't try.
> >>
> >>Respectfully,
> >>
> >>Ian  C. Bray
> >>Louisville, KY
> >>_______________________________________________
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> >>
> >
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> 
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