Been enjoying playing with NixOS recently.
I now have 2 systems as accessible as they can be under Linux--Espeakup for console/boot message access, and Orca at LightDM login/on the desktop.
It's all in a series of config files, so if I find an issue or make an improvement, I just edit the right file, commit, push, then it's a git pull && nixos-rebuild switch and it's everywhere.
I merged the default minimal ISO config with the same Espeakup module I'm using on these other systems. Now I have accessible minimal boot/installation media.
Going to switch my main server from Core OS. That just leaves my main laptop, which is still running Windows. As much as Windows a11y is nice, there's something to be said about being able to read boot messages and access a text console. Better desktop accessibility is fine as long as you make it to the desktop, but there are a thousand things that might go wrong and when they do you're sunk.
Peter Vágner likes this.
Dickson Tan
in reply to Nolan Darilek • • •Nolan Darilek
in reply to Dickson Tan • • •There's a graphical install that may or may not work with Orca now. It didn't a few months back but I know there've been PRs/issues submitted since and I don't know their status.
The minimal/text-based install is mostly just typing commands to make partitions/filesystems. Then you basically just get your configs in place on the newly-mounted filesystems, which may be a
cporgit checkout, and the installer builds that config onto the new installation. If you're comfortable with basic Linux commands plus a couple NixOS extras, you're probably fine with the minimal install plus my accessible media. I was able to comfortably read/hand-type the commands with an accompanying Windows laptop.I've done it independently on a couple different systems now, including one with ZFS. Hoping to have everything on ZFS soon.