Skip to main content


Just waiting on a #Linux distro to become as accessible as Windows to the Blind, and then I'll switch, because yikes. Link at end. Until then, sorry Linux, you still fail at accessibility compared to Microsoft. It's a shame, too! https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/new-windows-driver-blocks-software-from-changing-default-web-browser/
in reply to Robert Kingett, blind

Must be the wrong article 🤔

Have you tested the #Fedora distribution with the #GNOME desktop environment? They work hard to make it fully accessible.

I admit that the default synthesized voices are particularly awful, but they can easily be changed with Pied.

https://pied.mikeasoft.com

#accessibility #a11y

in reply to Robert Kingett, blind

I've been waiting for a little over fifteen years now and still haven't found something which is even comparable, let alone which provides better access than Windows. I would happily switch if I could, but as it stands, the accessibility race for blind users is won by Windows in the vast majority of cases. OSX is quite a bit behind and Linux is very far behind even OSX.
in reply to Tech Singer

@techsinger
Linux doesn't mean anything. There are many different desktop environments (GNOME, KDE, Pantheon, Mate, Budgie, Xfce...). Each will offer a different experience and more or less good accessibility, depending on its resources.
in reply to Okki

@gnomelibre @techsinger They're all inaccessible. Why don´t you take blind users at their word? Why the gaslighting?
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to The Yangsi Michael Dillon

@anantagd @techsinger
If you just say that's not accessible at all and that's not true, that doesn't help anyone. It demotivates developers, and means there will be fewer users, contributors, bug reports and suggestions for improvements.
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to Okki

@anantagd @techsinger
I've tested the problematic examples in the article and everything seems to work on my side (but not being blind myself, I may have missed the main point).

I just think it would be more constructive to acknowledge the progress and point out what's still a problem, what needs to be improved.

in reply to Okki

@gnomelibre @anantagd @techsinger the point of the article was to illustrate that in order for a disabled person to use any sort of distro they have to do extra things to make it work. Microsoft And Apple for example when you turn on voiceover, it just reads everything. When you turn on narrator. It just reads everything with minimal configuration or no configuration required. any configuration is user preference. The article demonstrated that it’s just not an accessible environment because speech does not start when you Load an operating system. Speech and braille is not available during installation, login, the like. Speech and braille should be available before you get to the desktop. It’s not about just testing to see if things work. This isn’t a binary. You have to mimic Microsoft and Apple and make an accessible environment to where these tools work for us without jumping through hoops and without enabling accessibility features/options/environments. Apple and Microsoft allow the operating system to be controlled without turning on a switch.
in reply to Robert Kingett, blind

@anantagd @techsinger
@jorge

One of the advantages of free software is that you can do whatever you want with it, without depending on the goodwill of a company.

So it might be simpler and more efficient to create a new Fedora variant (with BlueBuild), where the screen reader would be activated by default, with better quality synthesized voices, and a list of applications with good accessibility pre-installed.

https://blue-build.org

in reply to Okki

@gnomelibre @anantagd @techsinger @jorge For anyone wondering why free software does not succeed over the competition, it's this right here. We point out a deficiency in the experience, and the response is, "Your information is outdated. I tested it and it's fine. The advantage of free software is that anyone can do anything. You are just doing it wrong." Microsoft doesn't respond to users with a defensive crouch, they listen to them and do the work, resulting in a superior product.
in reply to Drew Mochak

@objectinspace @gnomelibre @anantagd @techsinger @jorge Also, Microsoft also does regular usability testing, with actually disabled users, takes down their user experiences, and then implements that feedback instead of saying, well, it works for me!
in reply to Robert Kingett, blind

@objectinspace @anantagd @techsinger @jorge

If free software is far behind, it's only because Microsoft has 166k employees and $211.9 billion in revenue, with an entire team dedicated to accessibility. They have a user feedback team and an army of developers to improve and fix what's wrong. Free software is a small handful of employees and volunteers.

in reply to Okki

@objectinspace @anantagd @techsinger @jorge

And you can blame me if you want, but at the start of the discussion, we had an assertion that free software was absolutely not accessible (without the slightest detail about what was wrong with it). After a few exchanges, I now have the impression that with a Linux distribution configured from the outset for the blind, the situation would be quite different.

in reply to Okki

@objectinspace @anantagd @techsinger @jorge

And again, this is free software and we clearly don't have the financial resources of Microsoft.

At some point, if you want things to improve, you have to contribute in one way or another (development, bug reporting, creation of a new specialized distribution, etc.).

in reply to Okki

@objectinspace @anantagd @techsinger @jorge

I'd like to apologize if I've come across as too harsh during the whole discussion (English not being my mother tongue doesn't help either). I was trying to understand what was wrong, in good faith.

in reply to The Yangsi Michael Dillon

@anantagd @objectinspace @techsinger @jorge

I still regret that we misunderstood each other to this extent, since although I have no disability, I would really and sincerely like free software to be perfectly accessible to everyone.

in reply to Okki

So, this will be my last contribution to this thread, and, you, in particular. Not for lack of interest or an unwillingness to teach, but, you mentioned that Apple and or Microsoft, and, I'd even extend Google into this pool, that they have money so can dedicate resources to accessibility but there's a key thing they all do that, so far, few or even no distro or otherwise maintainer has done. Listen to the users without pointing the finger back at them. That requires no money. This is key. You say you want feedback and you really want to learn, but you actually dismissed other blind professionals in this thread, people with decades of experiences, and then told them, even, that they were wrong and that it works just fine for you, but then you said it yourself you're not disabled. You didn't listen, you immediately went on the defensive and then made us prove ourselves to you. Apple, and Microsoft, don't behave like this. They also understand that accessibility is as good as the tech infrastructure, and make it usable and accessible from the ground up. My biggest issue with you, and others like you, in the #Linux space, is that refuse to really, and I mean really, listen, to what experts are saying. I've used accessible Cocanut on a VM, and it is a good start. The point is that the ORCA infrastructure needs a lot of work and then some. You all really, and I mean really, need to understand why these bigger tech companies and even other #OpenSource developers actually take the time to get feedback from Disabled users, but not through pull requests or complicated ticket tracking. Come to where the lowest tech people are and get feedback, like these other tech companies do. I use a ton of fantastic #OpenSource tools on Windows because the devellopers actively engage with the community and don't just point and say learn tech! Or it works for me, even though you do not know how to use a screen reader properly. Listen instead of pointing. @gnomelibre @anantagd @objectinspace @techsinger @jorge
in reply to Okki

@gnomelibre @anantagd @techsinger @jorge That you have arrived at this impression is curious, since that's not what anyone who's actually tried to do it has told you. There are legions of blind techno-wizards who have spent years, decades even, daily driving *GNU-Linux.* Today they are all on Windows 11. You believe this because you desire it to be true. Please believe what I, and every other disabled person on this thread is telling you: it isn't.
in reply to Drew Mochak

I'm blind. My first linux distro was Debian 1.3.1. I used it by piping the output of the terminal to a serial port and plugging in a hardware voice synthesizer to it (you can imagine how well this did (not) work with curses output).

I've used Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva (I think it was Mandrake at the time). There was a point when it almost, almost looked like Orca was catching up and becoming decent.

Then a long period of regressions which as far as I'm concerned has not finished.

It's not an issue of choosing the right distro or tweaking the right params. Using gnu/linux as a local OS for a blind person (remote access through ssh is another story) requires a degree of stubbornness and masochism I just don't have in me anymore. Believe me, I have tried.

Orca isn't a normal program. If (I should say when) it crashes, you lose access completely. So crashes must be extremely rare. If it's not efficient (and some of that is more of a DE issue, probably) the entire access is inefficient.

Now, where I differ with some people in this thread is in the notion that MS and Apple are good at this. They did a lot of good work, especially MS, but accessibility is far from a priority and they have regressions all the time.

And that's what worries me, because we don't have anywhere to go if things keep getting worse.

Please, when people tell you the accessibility sucks, listen. It is bad. There is today no way to run a gnu/linux system that's reliably and efficiently accessible. Hopefully this changes.
@objectinspace @gnomelibre @weirdwriter @anantagd @techsinger @jorge

reshared this

in reply to modulux

@fireborn However, if people just say that things suck, that's completely useless to developers, even for Joanie, as she can't make sense of any priorities from tat blanked statement. So, what would you fix, and in what order? I'd personally start with the keyboard monitoring support under Wayland, but you might have other things in mind?
in reply to Lukáš Tyrychtr

That's an important one. I haven't been looking into this too closely of late because it just annoys me, but the speed/latency of the accessibility event pump used to be a big one too, and general stability issues with Orca which is very crashy.

@tyrylu @fireborn @objectinspace @gnomelibre @weirdwriter @anantagd @techsinger @jorge

in reply to patricus

If we want to eradicate the slownesses and crashes, we need to have exact steps for these events. Personally, I did not see an absolute crash for a while, so, if anyone has a reproducer, we're open ears. Also for slow reaction times, which might occur, that's correct. And, screen curtain will take a long time, am afraid, because for proper implementation you either create a Wayland protocol (and implement it), or an API to the compositor, which will be also a huge undertaking in communication. Of course, you can always find a hack how to turn the monitor off on the graphics driver layer, but that's of course driver specific and might break at any time, if it even can be done.
in reply to patricus

Actually, this ship has sailed, or it will in the near future. E. G. Fedora and other big distros will not stop the Wayland rollout only because some a11y stuff is not ready. If they wanted to do that, we would have no Wayland adoption today.
in reply to modulux

@modulux @objectinspace @gnomelibre @anantagd @techsinger @jorge
Is it possible/ efficient for some uses (not everything, I know, and not everyone) to simply use CLI display on a braille machine?
in reply to Pierre

It's possible and that's one way I use it. Even then, it's not so much fun with curses-based stuff, or complex tables, or lines that exceed 80 characters (which is the maximum a braille display will hold).

It's also a problem to be stuck with things like this because as the software world moves on, there are things that won't get a CLI interface at all.
@PierreM @objectinspace @gnomelibre @weirdwriter @anantagd @techsinger @jorge