[nfbcs] Sonar or Vinux

Thu May 22 15:51:51 UTC 2014

I doubt the vinux or sonar developers ever put any thought into why 
people might want to try linux. Why would they care if people are trying 
it because they think it will help them get a job in IT or because they 
think it's more secure?

Your experience with people trying linux is certainly far different from 
mine. I don't know anybody who has tried it because they think it's more 
secure. Everybody I know who has tried it has done so because they are 
are already in systems admin and want to find out about linux.

PS: I kind of object to your saying linux is not a more secure operating 
system as if that's an established fact. That's a huge matter of 
debate.  There is no denying that the vast majority of viruses are 
written for Windows. I know the usual response is that that is only 
because Windows is so much more popular than linux. But then you have to 
get into theoretical issues about open source versus proprietary 
software. I side with the open source people on that issue too.

On 05/22/14 10:21, Littlefield, Tyler via nfbcs wrote:
> I don't think the goal was to aid in getting Linux-based employment; I 
> think the overall goal was to provide an accessible distro. Generally 
> you'll hear lots of rantings and ravings, but most people seemed to 
> switch because they think linux is more "secure" by default with no 
> bases for that assumption. At least it's generally what I hear and see 
> advertised by all the blindness companies that are selling "custom" 
> computers with Vinux installed.
> On 5/22/2014 11:15 AM, Jim Barbour via nfbcs wrote:
>> I will point out that this is why I'm not a fan of either distro.  The
>> blindness world isn't big enough to command a lot of attention. The
>> attention we get should be focused on making the distros themselves
>> easier for us to use.  Efforts that try to fork distros, like Ubuntu
>> and arch, into blindness focused ones, like vinux and sonar, do not
>> really help the situation.
>>
>> Further, a blind person isn't going to be able to require that all
>> unix machines they manage run a blindness friendly distro; so this
>> definately doesn't help blind folks get LInux related employment.
>>
>> JIm
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:02:19AM -0400, Littlefield, Tyler via 
>> nfbcs wrote:
>>> That's pretty much how it happened. Bill was basically project lead 
>>> and took
>>> over everything with some guy from Ubuntu who was back and forth, 
>>> think his
>>> name was tony. Or maybe that was the main guy, it's been a while. 
>>> Eventually
>>> he just gave it up. My biggest issue is a lot of people call it a 
>>> "secure
>>> OS," including commtechusa if you care to look at that site. I was just
>>> curious what they offered. Last I looked, Vinux recommended not 
>>> updating and
>>> they were on an older version of Ubuntu--both not really paths to 
>>> security.
>>> The updates was because things would break, but that still means 
>>> you're not
>>> all that secure if you ever leave your house and your personal router.
>>> On 5/22/2014 9:44 AM, John Heim via nfbcs wrote:
>>>> My experience as of about 1 year ago was that sonar was a way more
>>>> polished product than vinux. I've seen a lot of questions about 
>>>> vinux like
>>>> when is the new version coming out, why is it still based on some old
>>>> version of ubuntu. Like so many open source projects, there was 
>>>> probably
>>>> one person, maybe two, driving the project and when they ran out of 
>>>> steam,
>>>> the project slowed to a crawl.
>>>>
>>>> I was so impressed with sonar that I put it on my machine at home. 
>>>> And I
>>>> put it on what I call my drop dead emergency machine here at work. 
>>>> Sonar
>>>> is that solid.
>>>>
>>>> The one problem I have with sonar is that they are switching from 
>>>> basing
>>>> their distro on ubuntu to basing it on arch linux. I will probably 
>>>> drop
>>>> sonar once that conversion is complete. I have to stay with a 
>>>> debian fork
>>>> because my job is to support debian.  What I'd really like is to have
>>>> debian be so accessible that we wouldn't need either sonar or 
>>>> vinux. Well,
>>>> one can dream.
>>>>
>>>> On 05/21/14 20:05, David Andrews via nfbcs wrote:
>>>>> Hi Jim et al:
>>>>>
>>>>> I have a Windows XP laptop that I am thinking of installing a Linux
>>>>> system on, to play and learn a little.  What are
>>>>> advantages/disadvantages to Sonar versus Vinux?
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Take care,
>>> Ty
>>> http://tds-solutions.net
>>> He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; 
>>> he that dares not reason is a slave.
>>>
>>>
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