Anyone who didn't get the message, there is Dectalk for android. github.com/dectalk/microdectal…
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2025-05-21 21:14:21
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2025-05-21 09:57:09
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🚨 *Attention!* We were made aware of a fake “KeePassXC Password Manager Pro” repository on GitHub that links to unverified external binary downloads.
- There is NO Pro version of KeePassXC!
- You get all the “Pro” features with the regular version.
Please download KeePassXC only from trusted distribution channels linked on keepassxc.org/ !
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🚨 *Attention!* We were made aware of a fake “KeePassXC Password Manager Pro” repository on GitHub that links to unverified external binary downloads.
- There is NO Pro version of KeePassXC!
- You get all the “Pro” features with the regular version.
Please download KeePassXC only from trusted distribution channels linked on keepassxc.org/ !
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2025-05-20 12:45:22
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This week I learned there is such a thing as a lamb burger. And that one can get a hold of a few very easily in London. And I've decided I do not dislike lamb burgers, at all.
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2025-05-20 11:10:40
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Once upon a time, a blonde became so sick of hearing blonde jokes that she had her hair cut and dyed brown. A few days later, as she was out driving around
the countryside, she stopped her car to let a flock of sheep pass.
Admiring the cute wooly creatures, she said to the shepherd, "If I can guess how many sheep you have, can I take one?"
The shepherd, always the gentleman, said, "Sure!" The blonde thought for a moment and, for no discernible reason, said, "352."
This being the correct number, the shepherd was, understandably, totally amazed, and exclaimed, "You're right! O.K., I'll keep to my end of the deal. Take
your pick of my flock."
The blonde carefully considered the entire flock and finally picked the one that was by far cuter and more playful than any of the others.
When she was done, the shepherd turned to her and said, "O.K., now I have a proposition for you. If I can guess your true hair color, can I have my dog
back?"
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2025-05-20 11:06:07
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I've started editing my way through a small collection of short stories formerly published in the New European Magazine between 1822 and 1823. Here's the first of eventually six stories: 'The Funeral' by Thomas Richards.
bydbach.hcommons.org/wandering…
#Wales #Literature #RomanticFiction #DigitalEdition #OpenAccess
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2025-05-20 11:02:49
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“Out of 949 visual media attached in your 673 public posts with visual media, 935 have alt text. That's about 99%. You're doing a great job!”
I’ll take it! Through it is tempting to go back and fix those outliers…
Check your account here: stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/1…
Stefan Bohacek (@stefan@stefanbohacek.online)
I made a similar tool for Mastodon (and a few other platforms), for those interested to give it a try! https://data.stefanbohacek.com/projects/fediverse-post-accessibility #AltText #accessibility #ImageDescriptionStefan's Personal Mastodon Server
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2025-05-17 11:58:00
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#Catima 2.35.0 is out!
This release lets you further tweak the barcode size in the fullscreen view and slightly improves barcode finding reliability when scanning or loading a barcode from an image or PDF file. It also fixes a crash when trying to load a pkpass file without a barcode in it.
Coming soon to an app store near you :)
github.com/CatimaLoyalty/Andro…
#Android #OpenSource #IzzyOnDroid #FDroid #GooglePlay #GitHub
Release 2.35.0 · CatimaLoyalty/Android
Add ability to choose barcode width in fullscreen view Remove confusing import from app function Various scanning fixes Fix crash when loading a pkpass file without barcodeGitHub
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2025-06-06 01:42:21
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in reply to Jamie Teh
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Unknown parent
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in reply to victor tsaran
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A bit under a year ago, my friend Michael Sheppard and I released our first album. I'm super excited to present our second album, Toward Hope.
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0xBJ5vL…
Apple Music: music.apple.com/au/album/towar…
YouTube: youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK…
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0xBJ5vL…
Apple Music: music.apple.com/au/album/towar…
YouTube: youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK…
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@Jamie Teh Damn! It sounds brilliant. I've listened to it from the begining to the end in one go right away.
It's your and Michael's style and at the same time you have something unique in there.
I like the song "It'll Be Alright" the most. Do I hear correctly you have some guest vocalists in this song?
I find "Scourge" something you have very likelly taken off.
And also "Smoke and Splinters" is very nice too.
It's all great and heartening.
Thanks to both of you including your close friends and families. My all time nth degree favorite piece is "CruelToBeKind".
@pvagner Thanks Peter. Really appreciate the kind feedback. The two guest vocalists in It'll Be Alright are my two sons, first my 12 year old in the orchestral section, then my 10 year old right near the end. What do you mean when you say "you have very likely taken off" regarding Scourge? I didn't quite get it, haha. Wow, Cruel to be Kind is a blast from the past! I have a special place for that song, even if it's from a previous era. I feel like you've followed our music since the very beginning. Thank you for that. :)
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@Jamie Teh Regarding sourge I wanted to say it's kind of special, mixture of genres, a bit of electronic at the start, then metal, and that unusual singing immediatelly before the last chorus. I hope you had fun while arranging that.
@pvagner Ah thanks. Yes, that piece was a great deal of fun to put together. :)
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@Peiress Thanks. The two of us sing different songs. For example, It'll Be Alright is me, while Ghosts is my friend.
Very cool. Thanks for sharing! Love the melody and the chord changes all around! BTW, I think I recognized the string quartet from Native Instruments in one of the songs! :)
@vick21 Thanks. :) Heh, a large chunk of the instruments except pianos, some drums, guitars and synths are NI Komplete instruts.
I am all over the place as far as NI instruments go. Love their "Session" series though.
BTW, I am using Shreddage Fretless here: youtube.com/watch?v=sxgSjdoMvb…
BTW, I am using Shreddage Fretless here: youtube.com/watch?v=sxgSjdoMvb…
Sea Time (The Sound Waves of Marbella)
This tune was written during my trip to Marbella, Spain, while staying at the fabulous sea side there.Two years and many instrumental iterations later I have...YouTube
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@vick21 Oooo very nice! I do particularly love the thick, lush, layered, spacious character in this and your other work. It's a lovely immersive ear treat. :)
Late to the party i know. Enjoying listening through this now though! Who did the screams on Scurge?
Angry! It's like hearing a decades worth of failed Mac builds.
2025-05-17 08:57:02
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I just published my new instrumental called "Sea Time, the Sound Waves of Marbella" (for now on Youtube only).
Hope you like it! youtu.be/sxgSjdoMvbQ
#music #acoustic #instumental
Hope you like it! youtu.be/sxgSjdoMvbQ
#music #acoustic #instumental
Sea Time (Sound Waves of Marbella)
This tune was written during my trip to Marbella, Spain, while staying at the fabulous sea side there.Two years and many instrumental iterations later I have...YouTube
Peter Vágner reshared this.
2025-05-17 00:26:52
2025-05-16 19:32:09
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Also totally forgot to talk about this yesterday.
As a part of global accessibility awareness day, we put out a new update for the Be My Eyes app for Windows that is completely rebuild from the ground up. Along with giving us a better base to build amazing new features for desktop in the near future, this new app also fixes a lot of the accessibility issues that people have reported over the last 1.5 or so years.
In addition Chat History is now also available on Desktop, so you can start a conversation from mobile and continue it on desktop (and vice versa).
#a11y #bemyeyes #gaad #globalaccessibilityawarenessday
#blind #bme #tech
#disability #assistivetech
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2025-05-16 19:12:33
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Geeky stuff aside, let's enjoy the hottest friday party ever. @Marek Macko is on air again with his awesome show called #playgroundLive. #dance, #trance, a bit of #hardStyle, #eurodance, #90s and other party genres in an incredible live mix performance lasting a few hours spiced up with some random chat messages of fellow listeners and friends.
2025-05-17 04:48:46
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My band The Velvet just released out newest single called When the smoke clears, TAke a listen here: youtube.com/watch?v=tILuLXqlXO… #metal #guitar #hammond #hardrock
The Velvet - When the smoke clears (Offical Visualizer)
https://www.facebook.com/thevelvetofficialhttps://www.instagram.com/the_velvet_luxembourg/Recorded at Unison studiosMixed and masters at studio evolujciaYouTube
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2025-05-16 18:32:51
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Gerade auf Droidblind gepostet: Das ist neu in TalkBack 16.0 droidblind.de/blog/talkback16
Das ist neu in TalkBack 16.0
Google hat mit der Verteilung von Version 16 der Android-Tools für Barrierefreiheit begonnen. Das Update bringt Verbesserungen bei der…DroidBlind
⭐ 1
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2025-06-27 17:06:57
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in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
in reply to Dickson Tan
I love #joplin so much. I find myself using it to publish long documents that I want others to read that are well formatted, but in plain HTML so can't be edited, and live on my server. Better than a PDF by far, and markdown makes including tables and other complicated layout easy. The only improvement I'd love is the ability to see how many visits a published note got. I don't need browser and IP and location and all that stuff. Just a number, so I can know if a link I shared with a single person was viewed by them.
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Right now, I'm using #shlink to generate a unique URL for this purpose. So I publish a #joplin note, then put that URL into shlink, and give my person the shlink url. Then I can see if they clicked it or not. In theory, Joplin allows plugins and I could automate this workflow somehow but I have no idea how Joplin plugins actually work.
I've tried Obsidian, Silverbullet and Trilium Next, all of which had very significant accessibility issues I discovered within the first minute that made them not viable.
#Joplin was such a delight in comparison. There are minor bugs I've noticed, but nothing that prevents me from being productive. Thanks (@joplinapp for the amazing work.
The main thing I'm trying to figure out is setting up a build pipeline to export my public notes to .md and publishing it as a static site.
@neurrone@joplinapp There are plugins that will do this for you: joplinapp.org/plugins/plugin/com.export-to-ssg.aman-d-1-n-only/?from-tab=all
Joplin Plugin: Export To SSG
Export a collection of notes to static site generator project.joplinapp.org
2025-05-16 11:52:56
2025-05-16 09:41:13
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Dear #Letsencrypt, you helped secure millions and millions of servers, not just web servers. But your announcement at letsencrypt.org/2025/05/14/end… about ending Ending TLS Client Authentication Certificate Support in 2026 because Google changes their requirements would result in your certificates becoming a possible risk for ensuring SMTP traffic. Please think again. Please.
1/5
Ending TLS Client Authentication Certificate Support in 2026
Let’s Encrypt will no longer include the “TLS Client Authentication” Extended Key Usage (EKU) in our certificates beginning in 2026. Most users who use Let’s Encrypt to secure websites won’t be affected and won’t need to take any action.letsencrypt.org
This entry was edited (Friday, May 16, 2025, 10:42 AM)
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2025-05-15 20:08:57
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Here's the only sample we have of the CyberTalk synth, reading a part of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. You will hear the male voice first, than the female voice.
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Here's the only sample we have of the CyberTalk synth, reading a part of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. You will hear the male voice first, than the female voice.
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2025-05-15 18:29:50
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I Want to Love Linux. It Doesn’t Love Me Back: Interlude – A Thank You, Where It’s Due fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-w…
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2025-05-16 04:59:48
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*How secure is UnifiedPush?*
It’s a legitimate question that comes up from time to time. While the question is fairly short, the answer requires a few details. Behind the question of security, it’s also often about privacy.
unifiedpush.org/news/20250513_…
#UnifiedPush #PushNotifications #Android #FCM #Privacy
Push notifications, security and privacy
How secure is UnifiedPush? It’s a legitimate question that comes up from time to time. While the question is fairly short, the answer requires a few details. Behind the question of security, it’s also often about privacy.UnifiedPush
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2025-05-15 18:19:41
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If you’re like me and enjoy watching streams or listening to multiple audio sources, check out my newly updated @pipewire based script! It makes muting or unmuting sound from different sources really easy.
Find it here:
github.com/zikusooka/toggle-pw…
Context: joseph.zikusooka.com/?p=2637
#ZikTIPs #Linux #PipeWire #Multimedia
GitHub - zikusooka/toggle-pw-volumes: Toggle volume between several pipewire ports
Toggle volume between several pipewire ports. Contribute to zikusooka/toggle-pw-volumes development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
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2025-05-15 16:49:08
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Just ported Quake III Arena to webxdc.
That is, you send a file to a chat with your buddies, and frag right then and there.
GitHub - WofWca/quake3.xdc: A webxdc (in-chat mini-app) version of Quake III Arena (a 2-player prototype)
A webxdc (in-chat mini-app) version of Quake III Arena (a 2-player prototype) - WofWca/quake3.xdcGitHub
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2025-05-15 16:45:02
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in reply to Jamie Teh
in reply to victor tsaran
All songs finished, so I reckon we're a couple of weeks or so away from releasing our next album! 🕺
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Wow, that's quick! I am still on it! :) It's a struggle to work by myself! :) I need a band!
@vick21 haha. I don't have a band, but it's a collaboration with one other person, which helps. Both of us are keys and vocals though.
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in reply to Gwen moved to transfem social
Blind software developers on fedi, I have a question!
Have you used GDB? and if so, do you still use it? I'd love to hear experiences from blind users because I can't tell how good or bad our interface is for users.
For more context, GDB is the main debugger (that I know of, at least) for C, C++, Rust, Ada and Fortran. If you used a debugger for a program in one of those, you probably used GDB with maybe some interface on top.
Because GDB is all text based, I'd think it could reasonably well suited for blind users, but I'm sure being accessible isn't as easy as "the text is there" so I'd love to hear the experience of blind users!
I tried searching online but couldn't find any experiences from GDB users specifically (only general tool advice from coding with eyes closed), so direct experience would be appreciated!
Boosts are welcome!
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I've used GDB occasionally to set breakpoints and debug C and C++ code, from the CLI. It usually works fine, other than terminal weirdness when gdb and program output might mix or interleave.
I no longer use it but that's because I don't write C or C++ anymore.
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2025-05-15 23:48:21
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Today in the iOS app store in the Today tab, I encounter a heading with the title
Accessibility Awareness, the Best Accessible Apps and Games, Curated by App Store Editors
I swipe right and what do I then encounter?
Six separate buttons, all labeled "App Suggestion" with no accessible titles.
So, VoiceOver users just hear "app suggestion, button", "app suggestion, button", "app suggestion, button" ...
I have reported this to Apple Accessibility.
Happy Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
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I didn’t have the same experience, Apple must expect you to turn on all of the voiceover intelligence features. Anyways, lots of the games in there are not accessible for blind people. They don’t tell you that either.
Ugh, I've got nothing. All I can say is, Apple, do better.
i mean at least they have something, google doesn't have anything in the playstore talking about accessibility, but yeah i agree, lable your shit properly
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Google is fighting Nextcloud by harming our Android app. Nextcloud now has less functionality than Google Drive. This is clear anti competitive behavior. theregister.com/2025/05/13/nex… nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud-a…
Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection
Exclusive: Claims policy change is really just a way to squeeze out competitionRichard Speed (The Register)
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2025-05-13 16:29:12
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[orca] A simple Orca Intro guide for beginners freelists.org/post/orca/A-simp…
[orca] A simple Orca Intro guide for beginners - orca - FreeLists
[orca] A simple Orca Intro guide for beginners, orca at FreeListswww.freelists.org
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2025-05-13 15:18:15
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in reply to Peter Vágner
I am just testing @Jami with a #screenreader on both linux desktop and android for #accessibility.
Initial setup is accessible on both the platforms.
Listing conversations I can't really say as I only have single contact.
Audio calling is working fine. I am impressed that the call setup took just a moment. On android controls like microphone toggle, speaker / earpiece toggle and hangup button are working fine.
I am unable to find out in call controls with the keyboard on linux.
On both desktop and android I can write messages.
On android I can read messages, find and execute additional actions in the popup menu.
On the desktop I can't read incoming and outgoing messages with a screen reader. I haven't discovered on how to copy them.
In conclusion comparing this to the tox chat the Jami is more accessible with a screen reader. Perhaps I will be able to figure out how to handle the calls with a keyboard shortcuts however the fact message text is not readable with a screen reader on desktop linux and perhaps other platforms sounds dissapointing. The idea and decentralized nature of this communication app sounds really amazing.
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Exploring @Jami further I think I can post a few more observations.
The desktop app uses QT6 for the UI. Apart of some ounlabelled buttons such as Accept / Reject incoming call and some tab controls on the main window most of the UI elements are clearly labelled and accessible from the keyboard.
The desktop app has a keyboard shortcuts button on the main screen which opens a tabbed dialog with accessible lists of keyboard shortcuts. I haven't yet discovered if these can be tweaked but the default ones are working well for me. For calls it's ctrl+y for accepting and ctrl+d for rejecting / hanging up. Letter m alone can be used for muting / unmuting the microphone.
I need to find out if there is a way to create global shortcuts or do some actions using commandline switches. If either of this turned out to be possible it would perfectly integrate with the desktop.
Sending and receiving files is something I'm going to try next.
The desktop app uses QT6 for the UI. Apart of some ounlabelled buttons such as Accept / Reject incoming call and some tab controls on the main window most of the UI elements are clearly labelled and accessible from the keyboard.
The desktop app has a keyboard shortcuts button on the main screen which opens a tabbed dialog with accessible lists of keyboard shortcuts. I haven't yet discovered if these can be tweaked but the default ones are working well for me. For calls it's ctrl+y for accepting and ctrl+d for rejecting / hanging up. Letter m alone can be used for muting / unmuting the microphone.
I need to find out if there is a way to create global shortcuts or do some actions using commandline switches. If either of this turned out to be possible it would perfectly integrate with the desktop.
Sending and receiving files is something I'm going to try next.
2025-05-12 14:18:07
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#Development #Reviews
First impressions of Deque Axe Assistant · What to expect from the AI accessibility chatbot ilo.im/163tch
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#AxeAssistant #AI #Chatbot #Accessibility #WCAG #Design #WebDesign #WebDev #Frontend #HTML
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2025-05-13 07:04:50
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in reply to Danielle Foré
in reply to modulux
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi
in reply to Peter Vágner
If you’re a developer writing a GTK app and you want it to be accessible, you might want to check out the following links:
developer.gnome.org/documentat…
docs.gtk.org/gtk4/section-acce…
Coding Guidelines for Supporting Accessibility
Here are some things you can do in your code to make your program work as well as possible with assistive technologies. For components that don’t display a short string (such as an image button), s...GNOME Developer Documentation
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Do you know if this works on Windows now, because my understanding was that GTK's Windows accessibility wasn't working on GTK4.
@modulux I can't speak to how well it works in practice but GTK 4.18 and on should now be accessible on Windows and MacOS thanks to the new AccessKit backend
@Emmanuele Bassi @modulux @Claire @Danielle Foré I'm wondering are there known windows builds of some very accessible GTK apps such as fractal, shortwave, gnome podcasts, eartag, amberol or some others that we might enjoy trying out with a screen reader on windows?
I'll be definatelly looking into it soon enough. I'm excited about it so it's why I am also posting here.
I'll be definatelly looking into it soon enough. I'm excited about it so it's why I am also posting here.
@pvagner @modulux @clairie I am not aware of any binary builds for Windows; I personally have a full life already, and I don't particularly plan on wasting it on the foibles of Windows.
As far as I know, the accesskit backend was tested with a custom gnome-text-editor build, but that was last year. If people want to pick this up, I'd recommend starting with a small hello world to ensure that building all dependencies actually works.
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2025-05-12 07:12:09
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This is not only a well written song with a great message, but the production is really nice. Gabrielle Aplin - So Far So Good youtube.com/watch?v=-jipxnd4h2…
Gabrielle Aplin - So Far So Good
Dear Happy: https://gabrielleaplin.ffm.to/dearhappy UK March 2020 tour: http://gabrielleaplin.co.uk/live -- Follow Me:Website: http://gabrielleaplin.co.uk Sp...YouTube
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2025-05-17 17:26:22
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If you are blind and you have the spoons, can you let me know if you use the terminal on Linux and if so which one? If you use the terminal, do you use a screenreader plugin or a specific external screenreader on Linux?
I wrote a terminal UI program for kubernetes that has voice assistance and I want to test it with a normal workflow that a disabled user would follow.
Edit: I am also willing to pay! Read further down in this thread!
#a11y #foss #accessbility
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Is there a coop or collective of disabled people in tech where you can go to hire accessibility experts? I don't want to continue to release software unless I know its accessible, but I can't know that unless I have my software audited by disabled tech experts that know the pitfalls of these things. I don't need free labour either. I am happy to pay for this service.
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@aaron @icy @JesseBot I don't think I can call my-self an accessibility expert, however I am on linux most of my time, I mostly use gnome terminal with orca screen reader. I am kind of power user.
As for k8s and related technologies it's entirely new to me.
Still I'd be happy to be helpfull so if you have some patience with me to introduce your project, let me know please.
I am from central europe and evenings and weekends suit me better as during working hours I'm at the office.
As for k8s and related technologies it's entirely new to me.
Still I'd be happy to be helpfull so if you have some patience with me to introduce your project, let me know please.
I am from central europe and evenings and weekends suit me better as during working hours I'm at the office.
Sorry for the extreme delay. As I mentioned earlier, this is my hobby project, so I can only dedicate a lot of time to it when work isn't demanding on weekdays, but more frequently on the weekend! The project is called smol-k8s-lab (pronounced "small kay eights lab" which is the trick I used to get it to be pronounced properly by the tts library in python). You can install it using pipx, so pipx install smol-k8s-lab, but it has external dependencies for using kubernetes, so you'll also need to install with apt or brew kind and k3d. I have added screen reading elements for the terminal UI, but they're all prerecorded MP3s because I found orca and espeak to not sound very good. The TTS library I used with python has an irish accent, which I think is understandable, but I'd love your feedback on. Because the program uses MP3s, you will need alsa and/or pulse libraries installed to actually play the audio. If you would like, you can check out the project on github here: github.com/small-hack/smol-k8s…
If you have questions, or you would like to chat on a voice call, I can help out if we can find a time to link up. I can do weekends in the mornings after 10AM CEST, so tomorrow could work if either of you would like to do a call. I guess it makes sense to use something were we can share screens, that way if you run into any hiccups, I can see what you can't, and live fix any issues so you can continue. I've tested it form the point of running the smol-k8s-lab command, and then gone through the accessibility options. I am very interested in what you think of the accessibility screen and options and if I should improve them. I allow setting terminal beeps as well as reading various elements including screen titles. What I don't know how to do is make orca read the text. I know how to launch orca, and I know how to use the MP3s I added or espeak, but I don't understand how to tell orca, from the command line, to read a line of text.
GitHub - small-hack/smol-k8s-lab: ☁️ CLI & TUI with a smol friendly vibe to get started with Kubernetes on metal, then bootstrap apps using Argo CD 🧸 Great for testing webapps and benchmarking.
☁️ CLI & TUI with a smol friendly vibe to get started with Kubernetes on metal, then bootstrap apps using Argo CD 🧸 Great for testing webapps and benchmarking. - small-hack/smol-k8s-labGitHub
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Sorry for the very long reply. I know they're a pain on screenreaders, but there's a lot of info here and I didn't want to leave anything out. If you're still interested, please let me know what app you'd like to meet on and I'll get you my info. If you'd like to do it on your own and just provide feedback that's also ok. Please don't hold back any negative feedback. If you think it's an awful experience, tell me, and tell me how you'd like it to be better. I am here to help, as long as you understand that it may take me a few weeks as I do this in my free time. If you'd like payment for your services, please just DM me your rate and how best to pay you. I can do paypal through my roommate, direct bank transfer if you have an IBAN account, and ko-fi. The reason paypal has to be through my roommate is that paypal canceled my account when I tried to change my name after transitioning my gender.
Oh, this is also the first project I am confident enough to introduce to the blind community, but if you don't mind working with me, I have others that I'd like to work with you on in the future. I'd love to develop a relationship where I can start working more closely with people in the community that passionate about accessibility. I promise to learn from anything you tell me and disseminate that info back to my other friends in the industry and my coworkers if they'll hear it 🙇
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Yes, it's in a full TUI right now. There's also a CLI that can be used, but the purpose of the TUI was to make it easier to walk you through the process of setting everything up. Technically, if you're good with YAML, you could just use the CLI, but then you'd need to fill out the yaml using only comments in the yaml file.
Do you know of a CLI command to play some text, so something like: orca say "welcome to the TUI"? I know how to do this with espeak, but I'm not sure how to make orca read a TUI specifically. Alternatively, if you can tell me the command to make orca read everything in the terminal, that'd be awesome, or even just point me at a guide where I can learn myself. I can also spend sometime this evening reading this guide I found, but I'm not in a space where I can do that right at this exact moment. github.com/C-Loftus/orca-intro…
GitHub - C-Loftus/orca-intro-guide: A new user's guide for the Orca screen reader on Linux
A new user's guide for the Orca screen reader on Linux - C-Loftus/orca-intro-guideGitHub
Based on the feedback from @patricus and everything I've tried so far, it looks like this project is not ready for general use by the blind community. I am currently trying to figure out what's going on with it not reading elements on the screen on focus, so I will keep hacking on that and update you all when it's ready for another round of testing. I apologize for the delay. I spent the past few hours working with tdsr and breaking my terminal with that (I have a lot of ascii art features to my terminal experience that the screenreader hates and I've been adding more features to my shell to work with that). I'll spend more time on this today and tomorrow and if I can't get it to work, it may have to be a next week thing. Thanks for all your patience!
Thank you for the tip! I'll add it to the doc I'm starting to keep track of all of these tips and links everyone has been kindly sending me. 🙏
I really appreciate it, but please don't stress yourself too much on this. If you don't have the time or your system isn't cooperating, you can always wait till next weekend.
Until then, I'm going to keep fighting pyobjc on macOS. I think part of my issues here are because I wrapped tdsr in a poetry project so I could develop with it a bit more quickly and then released it via pip. When I do a pipx install tdsr2 it doesn't work and says it can't find the objc library, but when I use poetry shell to create a local python virtual environment and use the tdsr command, it works beautifully. When I try to run smol-k8s-lab in the terminal after tdsr is running, it both plays the MP3s I mentioned before AND tdsr uses the default system TTS voice and you get both playing at once which is horrible. It also causes tdsr to start spitting out a lot of terminal escape key garbage to the screen and breaks the whole session entirely. I had to manually close my terminal tab, because it wasn't responding to control + D like it normally does. If I wrote the thing and I feel frustrated, I don't want users to also go through that.
As far as linux is concerned, I don't have easy access to a machine console with gnome on it, as I'm currently running KDE and tdsr doesn't seem to play well on kde at all. Let me give speakup a try though. I haven't tried that one yet. It looks like it uses espeak, which I have tried before, so maybe it'll work better. 🙏 (The other thing that makes this complicated is supporting both Linux and MacOS at the same time, because there's different tools across bother of these. I wonder if this is made any better by anything the wezterm project has done lately as that's a terminal that works on multiple OS. I brought this up to wez himself in 2023 github.com/wezterm/wezterm/dis…
I followed up with wezterm and it looks like he opened an issue where he's gotten about as far as I have in learning the tools he needs to learn, but hasn't put in any actual PRs github.com/wezterm/wezterm/iss… Having a single terminal to support across all operating systems though would make this easier, so I will push on this as well in the background.
How to use screenreaders or text-to-speech functions with wezterm? · wezterm wezterm · Discussion #4441
I am working on a TUI for a tool I'm writing and I was wondering if there's any built-in accessibility features in wezterm for users with vision disabilities, such as support for screen readers, a ...GitHub
KDE is a mess with screenreaders like most of linux.
Yeah, I'm considering going back to gnome full time so I can actually ensure my normal workflow prioritizes screenreaders in the future, because if I'm not dogfooding it, it won't get the love and attention it needs. I honestly forget why I switched to KDE in the first place, so maybe it's time to give it up 🤷
gnome is not bad, it has it's own issues but they're minor quirks that you can get used to, and some of them are easily fixable with extensions.
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These days when I set up a computer and want to create a local user account, I just invoke that screen from the command prompt. You can do this with an internet connection, but it needs to be one of the first things you do.
1. In the Windows first-run setup (after it has been installed), press shift f10 to open command prompt.
2. Type this: start ms-cxh:localonly
This should pull up the old "Who's going to use this PC?" screen. Seems to work in Windows 11 24H2. When you get done answering security questions, the computer (or at least the out-of-box experience) will restart.
I also use this cmd trick to launch a portable copy of NVDA sometimes.
A lesser-known shortcut in Windows setup is ctrl-shift-f3. This puts you into audit mode, where you're logged into the desktop of the administrator account even though you haven't completed Windows setup yet. A dialog will automatically start, giving options to restart into the out-of-box experience or restart normally. In this mode, you can install drivers and make any other changes that need to be made before the setup process completes.
Example: When giving someone a Surface tablet with an attached Bluetooth keyboard cover, you might want to go into audit mode so you can pair the keyboard, but still retain the setup process for the recipient.
You can, of course, also use this trick to completely bypass Windows setup in order to reinstall Windows on a brand new system.
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The state of Linux accessibility in 2025. This started out as a rant but became a series. Please feel free to leave feedback, comments, and subscribe via rss or email for more stuff as I release it. fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-w…
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honestly? this just gives us more, like, of a push to actually get a few versions of Solaris and OpenIndianna and friends working in vm and ee if their accessibility is any better
I should read it soon
I am a hobby systems programmer that wants to make accessibility better but I don't really know how to since nobody besides me and maybe a few others seem to actually want to make Linux better beyond their pristine abled usecase
This right here is exactly WHY people get so mad when #linux #accessibility comes up. This is why even when people receiving the torch who want to do better get unjustly yelled at. We're dealing with systemic neglect for quite literally decades, and pretty much a big fat f*ck you every single time some new thing happens in this space. Are Windows and Mac worth switching from? Absolutely. In a heartbeat.
Is it worth switching to ... this? ... How masochistic are you feeling? Not just today, but for the rest of your digital life?
Is it worth switching to ... this? ... How masochistic are you feeling? Not just today, but for the rest of your digital life?
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I've just started going down this rabbit hole and this struck a chord for me. It's hard to appreciate that betrayal when I don't rely on it day-to-day. Thanks for sharing your perspective
The truly sad thing is you could write this kind of post about every single operating system that we use, even ones that we say works very well actually, like Windows. I've tought several people how to use computers over the years, and inevitably something will come up where they'll ask me but why? And I have no good answer. It's gotten to the point where I don't even actively notice some of the workarounds I do anymore because they're just so natural to me now. I often say if operating systems were as broken for sighted folk as they are for us, everybody would be outraged. It would never, ever, ever fly. Windows has sharp edges. Mac has a lot of sharp edges. iOS has sharp edges. Android has them. ChromeOS seems forgotten and is just one giant edge. And every single one of them has different failure modes. Different things that don't work how they're supposed to. Why do you never linger on this particular section of the UI? Oh it's because if I remain here for too long, things will slowly fall apart and crash. Better tab on quickly! Why do you always very quickly switch out of your terminal? Oh because I know if I execute this particular command, there will be a *lot* of text output, and I know it will take my screen reader down. Are just normal things sometimes. I love computers because they let us take part in life in ways we never could before. But at the same time I hate computers because every day is a reminder of how much we don’t actually truly matter. Everyone's running ahead and we're expending everything we have just to not lose them completely.
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@talon And, at the risk of piling onto the gripefest, all of this just makes me feel guilty for not doing more to fix things. But I know I can't and shouldn't be responsible for fixing it all.
@matt You're doing enough. You're doing more than a lot of people. I could learn how to help fix things myself and I feel guilty for not doing it, but I also have to understand that I simply do not enjoy this kind of work. I *can* do the work I do enjoy so I do that instead. So don't worry. I appreciate all you're doing and when I complain about things like this it is never meant personally in any way. No one person can fix this by themselves. I don't imagine a lot of Linux GUI work isn't done for some kind of compensation. You did contracted accessibility work. So why don't we have more of that? It clearly helps.
@talon @matt Thanks for sharing - such a shame we have reached this state of affairs!
I wonder whether there are potential parallels with things like LineageOS and postmarketOS - focus initially on devices like ThinkPads that are known to work well with Linux. Volunteers could sign up to run through an accessibility checklist after (say) booting a live image from a USB drive and document on a wiki. But as you say... assembling that image is not going to be trivial 
@talon at least ChromeOS won't be around much longer, even Google has realized it's not worth saving and is working on replacing it with Android for desktop.
@talon This is absolutely right. I have debian running on my alienware for having fun with local ai generation, but I just end up sshing into it from windows because if orca breaks I have no speech on tty's and I better hope orca pops back up if I restart it from mate.
@menelion My intention was not to turn this into an X is better than Y debate, we already have more than enough of those.
@pitermach I'll even tell those YouTube influencers about this article and even those people who say... Fuck Apple, Google and Microsoft, fuck proprietary software, long live Open-source and Linux! pseudo-patriotic anthem. Heck if I were in person with them I'll symply say read this article first!
Different things work for different people, but yes, everything has its ups and downs, some have more ups, some more downs, and work arounds are a part of life so much, that we just do them on autopilot. Things are supposed to work, but when they don't work, because companies don't want to put the effort, or people don't want to put the effort towards inclusion, then we have no choice. But nothing is perfect, neither are we, so there'll always be things we can't fully answer, or stuff we can and cannot use. And it's not about something being better or worse than something else. It's all down to trial and error, and eventually using everything if we can't choose, or because one thing has something and the others don't. Absolutely thing refers to any OS, that way there's no stating better or worse in this reply.
CC @dingodoppelt you may find this interesting.
You've often touted the joys of daily-driving Linux, but I've never been able to articulate properly why it might be hard from an accessibility standpoint.
You've often touted the joys of daily-driving Linux, but I've never been able to articulate properly why it might be hard from an accessibility standpoint.
@FreakyFwoof You very much have a point there. Though it is not "Linux" ignoring accessibility, it is the desktop environments and software. And the good news is: Progress is being made towards an accessibility-first distro:
social.tchncs.de/@Linux@linuxr…
social.tchncs.de/@Linux@linuxr…
so far it has been an amazing read! I had no idea about all the accessibility tools.
I am working on a Linux distro (slowly) and would love to at least try to make an effort to solve at least some of this... Esp since I will be maintaining significant patches to the kernel, and handrolling my own DE, package manager...
This entry was edited (Saturday, May 10, 2025, 1:54 PM)
thanks for documenting all the issues. I've thought of switching to Linux but will never do so if it's this bad. I've experienced some weird behaviour with Orca on various distro installers and had trouble, this seems to be the norm and not the exception. I thought I was just doing something wrong.
I was reading this and thinking "hm, I wonder if NixOS might be a good platform to pursue for accessibility". Then I got to the section you had on NixOS.
It definitely seems like a good starting point. Some sort of configuration as code approach, anyway.
Though I think it'll continue to be a power tool that's hard to use for a long time, maybe forever.
Interesting article, thank you!
One thing that's depressing is that it sounds like the technology to make it work well is (mostly) there, but no one does the last 10% of work to make it accessible.
If one desktop-centric, not-totally-outdated Linux distro had an accessible installer and offered an installation profile for blind users that installs necessary software *and* pre-configures everything accordingly (and doesn't break it on updates) that would probably go a long way..
One thing that's depressing is that it sounds like the technology to make it work well is (mostly) there, but no one does the last 10% of work to make it accessible.
If one desktop-centric, not-totally-outdated Linux distro had an accessible installer and offered an installation profile for blind users that installs necessary software *and* pre-configures everything accordingly (and doesn't break it on updates) that would probably go a long way..
But then again, I'm not sure if there currently is any desktop-centric not-totally-outdated Linux distro that I would recommend to *anyone* who can't (or doesn't want to) fix technical problems.
Ubuntu seems in a bad shape these days, all those rolling release distros are kinda fragile by nature (and even if things continue working, you don't want noticeable changes in your software all the time), Debian stable is too old, ...
Ubuntu seems in a bad shape these days, all those rolling release distros are kinda fragile by nature (and even if things continue working, you don't want noticeable changes in your software all the time), Debian stable is too old, ...
> You're not just using Linux anymore.
You’re wrangling demons.
Anyone sufficiently far into Linux is not using Linux, but rather wrangling demons
> Not with fragile scripts or one-person distros—but with reproducible systems that treat configuration like infrastructure.
I switched from NixOS to a one-being mess of wrangled demons with hand-rolled Nix-on-Arch stuff with Fedora packages and random stuff shoved into /usr/local and a bunch of handrolled containers and aaaa
And I am sighted, and the reason why my system is the way it is is probably due to my attention disorder and other various needs.
for context BTW, I hate Linux with all my heart x3 I use it anyway, but I do.
I hate Linux so much that I have spent hundreds of hours on OSDev to replace Linux with my own OS haha
I have a few rants about glibc (nss and locales; vanilla ikik), idk brltty, and I have countless about the kernel.
I do need to learn more about the existing accessibility tools tho.
Wayland is such a PITA, even for sighted people. So many basic things they refused (and sometimes still refuse) to even acknowledge - IDK how it got any traction.
But at least for now using X11 is still feasible (I'm using it with XFCE myself)
omg I would love help, I have been fighting LLVM for the past 3 years haha
I wanna avoid glibc due to issues with static linking and code quality and instead wanna fork musl
Same with libstdc++, GCC...
This entry was edited (Saturday, May 10, 2025, 2:50 PM)
oh god, yea...
can't alsa handle multiple streams ? Poorly, but kinda handle... Idk. I should test haha
It's pretty fucked up how apparently accessibility was not even considered when developing/specifying both Wayland and Gtk4, though.
And those are not exactly hobby projects developed only by volunteers in their freetime either
How is Qt doing in that regard?
urgh - again a case of >90% there, but no one does the last 10%... how hard can it be to at at least document the env vars?!
(I vaguely remember trying to figure out some Qt env vars a while ago and didn't find any proper documentation either, so that's a general problem there)
And wouldn't it be nice if toolkits and desktops could agree on *one* (hopefully simple) way to enable such features...
BTW, do you have an opinion on the ADRIANE desktop system?
I remember seeing a long time ago on a KNOPPIX live CD (it's from the same guy, Klaus Knopper) and it seems like it's still developed, but not available in common distros.
It has the approach of being text-based first with screen readers and braille in mind
I remember seeing a long time ago on a KNOPPIX live CD (it's from the same guy, Klaus Knopper) and it seems like it's still developed, but not available in common distros.
It has the approach of being text-based first with screen readers and braille in mind
As someone who was involved for a short while in bug triaging and testing for accessibility functions of LibreOffice on macOS, I can sadly only confirm the sorry state of affairs. For many years, the bugs reported against accessibility in LibreOffice went pretty much unresolved/ignored. Until fairly recently, the version for macOS was still using code that used a deprecated Apple API - not surprising then, that it didn't play well with the built-in accessibility functions of the OS, and that calling these functions often caused LibreOffice to crash or hang. It was so bad at one stage that we were recommending to people to turn off all accessibility functions of the OS if you wanted to work with LibreOffice on macOS, which really does kind of defeat the purpose of the goal of providing an office productivity suite usable by as many people as possible.
These problems are frustrating because without a screen, sighted users can't use a computer either. Hopefully braille and text-to-speech will be treated as first class citizens one day.
A question. How practical is a full text mode linux system for blind users, at the moment? I know edbrowse exists, and standard command-line can do most other things. Is the main problem running specialised programs that only provide a GUI?
This entry was edited (Saturday, May 10, 2025, 5:07 PM)
@Aydan @aaron There is much blind users and other power users can do on the text console with no graphic, but browsing the modern web is not practical, no matter what the browser. These days web is too much interactive. Even those who are using emacs for almost everything have to use chromium and firefox for browsing the modern web sites.
Bleh, that sucks. I tried installing linux on a computer with a few... Rather broken components, and that didn't hold up too well. Hard drive probably failed me. So, I wish you good luck with fixing all that mess that it is producing for you. Having no speech sucks.
The blog post is so well written.
And the topic important.
And the topic important.
this, is, awesome! goddamn, a very, very good article!
However, and consider this the well...but, section. Essentially, a lot of your issues happen because ubuntu exists, and particularly because you're using it, especially ubuntu mate. Ubuntu, to me, stopped mattering the moment canonical did their whole snap thing and slowed down their system, not sure if that's still a thing, but I know they're using that flutter installer which is...ahem, definitely not a very good thing for us. I didn't try it, but I know from trusted sources that it's pretty bad, I wouldn't have the patience for that tbh.
Next, the login issues...stop using ubuntu mate, and in particular, the issue here is a display manager called lightdm. It's possible to make it work again by editting configuration files, but meh, I don't care at all at this point, use gdm is my recommendation. I know it's bulky and a bit meh, but it's bad for everyone, as someone once said. With gdm, if you start your screenreader once, it's gonna be on pretty much for ever, unless some specific thing happens, but that thing is so rare that you shouldn't ever encounter it. Also, persistance, you don't need a script for that, that hasn't been a thing for me ever since the dark ages. I'm using arch, but like, if people's first experience of stuff is ubuntu and especially ubuntu mate, no wonder they run in terror at the whole brokenness of it all, let's just say ubuntu is even more known for not caring
About pipewire: the way to make that work is to use systemd's support for linger and enable that, then indeed as you said, you share sockets with root, but you don't have to modify service files or session files or anything of the sort. If I would have to do that, honestly I would have given up a long time ago. I like challenges, but challenge for challenge's sake isn't something I'm after. O also, for configs, use the user wide location, $XDG_CONFIG_DIR/pipewire.conf.d, that wouldn't be overridden by updates of pipewire. I have a script for that, if you need it. It's still using the old lua based configuration for wireplumber, but that's not needed anymore anyway. Also, a lot of gtk4 apps just work nowadays, way fewer accessibility issues than before.
About alsa, the kernel and espeakup, no comment, unless you do what you said and what I also said above, it's kinda oofed and screwed. About brltty and friends, absolutely no idea there either, I don't have a braille display.
You mention the thing that if one doesn't know the secret command to turn on the screenreader, they're screwed. True, but there the only winner is mac OS, because unless you know to press ctrl+windows+enter, you won't get speech in windows. Is it consistent and all distros have it? hell no, definitely not! but just pointing that bit out.
Alright, that being said, if you want to know how a good linux future would look like, can you do the following? no problem if you don't want to, but still
- go on the fedora website
- download the fedora workstation iso, important, workstation, v42
- boot into it
- this issue is unescapable for now unfortunately, but when you think it booted, press alt+super+s to do the screenreader command
- the voice would fluctuate weirdly in pitch, but either way, try to just install it as usual, without going in and editting config files, or doing anything a regular user wouldn't be able to do. If you want to do that, can you please reply with how that went? I'm really curious, because I got a relative newbie to tech to install it with this new installer without issues, and yes, this is specific to 42, and yes, I think only workstation has it
Yeah, unfortunately, customisations aren't so huge with fedora and gnome, but yeah, that's the quickest way to get started. There are also some gnome peculiarities, but I'm assuming you know them, so I won't repeat those.
About the whole wayland stuff, totally agreed! however, starting from the premis that any app can snoop on my keyboard all the time, can read every single file I have access to, and can perform anything I can, and maybe more if it can become root, that's definitely not a good situation either. I hate the whole accessibility is left by the wayside as much as you do, hell, I'm making a screenreader along with some awesome people specifically because we want to be free to just experiment and maybe write something better than orca one day, aka what commentary is to talkback in the android realm, and we can barely figure any of this stuff out, we didn't even get to implementing orca's heuristics because we don't know what they are, since you guessed it, they aren't documented.
And yeah, I can't wait for your next article, it's gonna be awesome to read it! thanks for the very insightful text once again, it was really well written!
I may reply to some other posts of this thread because there are some things to still be clarified, don't like how the fediverse represents threads in a linear fassion, but yeah, telling you this so it wouldn't be confusing afterwards, because I was indeed confused when I saw this issue for the first time.
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At the desktop environment level, KDE eV is currently employing/contracting the legally blind Ritchie Frodomar, 1 of 11 eV staff in total, which should hopefully help improve this situation. Still, it's awful that many Linux distros have currently got themselves into this state.
Note to self: I must install a screen reader on my GNU/Linux system (1) to know what the experience is like, (2) to be able to report/fix the bugs, and (3) to be able to test the code projects I will create.
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Definitely. Accessibility should be part of the foundational values we build on. It's core to user freedom.
Well said. I revisit Linux every couple years to see if there's a straightforward installation for me, a sighted user who tends to use Apple hardware. The last time was just a few weeks ago and I found the language even on the various distro download pages to be confusing enough that I didn't feel comfortable going forward. There are a lot of dependencies that you have to understand to get started with Linux as a non-programmer and they can be very daunting.
when was that? you updated what packages and what part of it broke? but yeah, if you want to install everything yourself and so on, the only viable way imo is arch. I did read the whole article, but I was focusing on ubuntu mate there because those kinds of issues you only get there. The post-login stuffage is an issue with lightdm and sddm, so yeah, I hate the whole stuff with that. The issue here is basically that display managers have to implement the launch an accessibility service command themselves, which is of course not something most of them would do, unfortunately. That's why x11 was better in some arias though, it allowed us to make some hacks which would work almost all the time. Either way, gnome and kde are really underwhelming when it comes to wayland protocols, the best stuff is wlroots based, they have extensions for practically everything, it's just that an AT has to interface with those protocols. But yeah, quite a grim situation over all, and about the fedora stuff, dk when that happened, however I haven't heard of such issues in quite some time. Also, fedora is now updating more like windows, so it restarts and updates like that. If you interrupt the update process, you could get a broken system. But then, that's what immutable distros are supposed to fix, and imo, immutable/atomic systems are the best compromise we currently have between nix and just plopping stuff in /usr/bin and making your system function by installing scripts everywhere and holding it together with duct tape.
pipewire...and things didn't get fixed after you rebooted? when did that happen?
hmm, that's concerning. Do you still have the affected machine, vm, or whatever it was? do you also have matrix? I know a place where you could ask for a postmortem of sorts. But yeah, I upgraded the fedora system from 41 normally and I didn't have issues, maybe because I used gnome's software tool since I got lazy and didn't want to use the command line? the GUI is corrupting it seemns! :p
ha! arch ftw! are you using gdm for the login screen? also, can't wait for the grub and full disk encryption related article, I have a lot of frustration with that myself
hmm, interesting...do you then launch the gnome session from your ~/.bashrc? I nowadays use gdm even for launching sway, weird right?
Incredibly powerful stuff here. Hopefully you have better luck explaining this than I have. I’ve seen so many “linux on Ubuntu is great actually!” threads from people who don’t know and it triggers me every freaking time.
@aaron @the esoteric programmer Yeah! @Arch Linux ftw!
Again this is a nice opportunity to remind of my story. I have installed arch at the end of 2012. I am updating it incrementally to this day. I have changed three laptops so far during all these years and my install procedure was to clone both my system and home partitions to the new laptop, booting linux uefi stub directly.
The only thing that really bothers me is that I can't or don't know how to enroll my own KSK to make my file systems encrypted by my-self. Perhaps some three times something has broken for me because of broken GDM, accidentally interupted building of initramfs. At those times I simply boot arch iso off of an USB, chroot to my install, fix the broken stuff and continue from there.
I am using gnome by default and very rare switching to the pure text console enabling speakup manually as I need it.
So I am looking to the brighter future.
Perhaps one day we'll get touch screen support similar to android and IOS on linux and we'll be able to also enjoy linux on our phones.
While the original post aims to make this readili available for the masses, some of us do really like to live on the bleeding edge enjoying the geeky stuff.
I recall someone here on the Fedis shared a sad thread years back, about the two (2) times that the biggest American charity for blind folks partnered with serious Linux devs to improve accessibility in the core OS.
Both times, Microsoft threatened to defund the Charity, who received most of their money from MS, and the project fell through.
MS wins gov contracts on accessibility grounds, so they sabotaged the open alternative twice.
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@seachaint Had no idea about this and it's quite disturbing to me that they would stoop so low. Planning on reading this article, maybe it will inspire some action to improve things.
That isn't to say "This is why, so it's fine". I would rather think of accessibility as a first class part of design that doesn't need a "funded project" to bake in. But it's still saddening and angering to learn how MS will absolutely screw users who need accessibility features, if it helps them win contracts. And they get the credit for being accessible, in the end.
I've had a more positive experience over the years, but first with Debian, and later Arch Linux. I'm currently running Arch. I know there's work to be done in Linux accessibility, and a need for more development resources. On the other hand, I worry that posts such as this are going to discourage people from trying it - even people who would benefit from doing so.
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I feel the pain reading this. Being a long term Linux user as well knowing the how hard it can be to install a simple application from source sometimes. And imagine doing it with the screen turned off... I think this is one of the problems with the OSS world. There are too many distros out there and "no one is forced" to make it accessible. Are there any projects out there working on this?
wait - THAT'S what brltty is for? I recently messed around with an esp32 dev board and I couldn't flash it. The documentation just told me to disable or uninstall brltty. This worked, so I didn't question it further then. Now it sounds like this was similar to the docs telling me to just shut off all my monitors?
holy shit that's depressing. at least NixOS lets you share the horrible crimes you have to do to get things working but this is little assurance.
if you want reviews on nixpkgs changes, feel free to tag me (LF- on GitHub) but i don't know how else to practically help; it feels like basically everything is undermaintained, nobody has any time, and that the reason stuff worked in 2012 was that there were government contracts to be had for gnome people at redhat that required that the accessibility works.
ultimately all those things just set environment.etc.* so you can just do that there as well with raw text; the modules that give you something nicer are just implemented on top of that. it's also possible to manually create it if you don't want to manage it with NixOS.
in principle it's probably possible to use another distro's ISO to install NixOS. it's *very* possible to install NixOS over ssh with a custom ISO and i do it most times. building custom ISOs with your ssh keys built in is like 20 lines of code on *any* distro with lix/nix installed and it's my preferred installation mechanism; see LF-/dotfiles on GitHub, the iso stuff in configs/nix/flake.nix.
the iso not being accessible really sucks and i am willing to lend social capital to efforts fixing it; the solution of adding ssh keys to the installer can bypass that for now, and probably is more pleasant than doing an arch style install process entirely in a vt console
@ZBennoui It was shared as a thread here and it's probably gone, but I _think_ the charity was the American Council for the Blind. The partnership may have been the Linux Foundation or GNOME.. It's been a while.
I hope it's documented on the web somewhere and wasn't just discussed here. The person sharing it claimed direct participation both times.
Sorry if that's not much help
I hope it's documented on the web somewhere and wasn't just discussed here. The person sharing it claimed direct participation both times.
Sorry if that's not much help
I saw your blog post passing by in another toot, and wrote a mini-thread of three toots about it: exquisite.social/@labellaragas…
I work in website accessiiblity and I am very sorry desktop accessibility on Linux is failing people with a disability. Are there distro's that do better as Ubuntu, or are they all bad?
And have you tried any of the BSD's?
Sophie (@labellaragassa@exquisite.social)
Wow. An excellent post from a blind screen reader user, on how bad accessibility is on Linux. https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-want-to-love-linux-it-doesnt-love-me-back-post-1-built-for-control-but-not-for-people/ It is a fucking shame.Exquisite.social
a slight correction: GTK4 released with accessibility. We delayed the release to land my rewrite that cut through three different layers to get to Orca. It was indeed incomplete, mainly because we had to wait to get the rest of the stack up to speed, and it had bugs because the whole stack comes without regression testing (something I also worked on). The rest is accurate…
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accessibility has been stuck in “held together by hopes and dreams” since the Oracle acquired Sun and chopped the accessibility team, and companies focused on web browsers instead of native OS support; of course, volunteers don’t end up prioritising stuff they don’t use, and you’re left with very few people keeping the lights on and trying to catch up to the changes in the rest of the stack
no worries; I just wanted to make sure to note that there were regressions because the accessibility work was there. You can say that the GTK developers rewrote the implementation for 4.0 but it still needed work at release time.
thats perfectly fine. We’ve had bad experiences when correcting the record in the past, so thanks for giving me the chance to clarify
This entry was edited (Sunday, May 11, 2025, 9:12 AM)
Having more users doesn't necessarily encourage development in free and open-source software. Prioritizing satisfying the existing users would be a good move. I think various Linux distributors with resources should expand and combine their accessibility efforts via the GNOME Foundation, Linux Foundation, or another suitable, neutral nonprofit.
i think it might be quite possible to inject Wi-Fi credentials into an ISO as well, though I'm uncertain of the specifics of how. there's also the secondary strategy of obtaining Ethernet adaptors though that's kind of annoying of course.
@dingodoppelt Guess blind people never use the internet or hell, even computers at all. Their helpers do that for them isn't that right?
Thank you for writing this. As a sighted developer (with a personal interest in accessibility), I learn a lot from reading the experiences blind people take the time to write down and share with others.
I hope we can get to a point where people stop accepting or normalizing accessibility failures. People seem to treat it like an "extra", but when core functionality fails for a portion of your users, that's not an extra, that means your software is broken!
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@FreakyFwoof @dingodoppelt The how manyth blind distro is this? 5th? 6th? It will go the inevitable path as all the others. Also we don't need a blind windows or a blind Mac so why should we need a blind Linux? And what about other disabilities? Why shouldn't I be able to use arch btw?
@talon @dingodoppelt For all MS and Apple's issues (and yes they both have many) I could get a non-techy computer-user up and running with a fresh install and built-in screen-reader within a day. I'd say a couple hours but a day just to be fair.
Every single! Linux distro needs the same level of access, whether that's screen-reader, magnification, braille, high contrast, whatever the case may be.
Custom builds of stuff always fall behind mainline. We see it time and time again. Bespoke hardware and software has a tendency to get left behind.
Braille display tech is living proof of this a lot of the time.
Every single! Linux distro needs the same level of access, whether that's screen-reader, magnification, braille, high contrast, whatever the case may be.
Custom builds of stuff always fall behind mainline. We see it time and time again. Bespoke hardware and software has a tendency to get left behind.
Braille display tech is living proof of this a lot of the time.
I frequently get frustrated with commentary about this from disabled people on Mastodon, since it is often entitled if not downright insulting contributors/maintainers.
In that sense, I approve of your commentary here because it is much more differentiated and calls out problems and frustrations without attacking people who don't deserve it.
In that sense, I approve of your commentary here because it is much more differentiated and calls out problems and frustrations without attacking people who don't deserve it.
Thanks for the detailed writeup! I'm a sighted person who has used Linux for years, but had no idea how bad its accessibility is.
Thanks. Great article!
@a11yChief I... Just noticed that. I like to network and bring people together and github did it already haha
@a11yChief No but he sent it to me to look over, and I told him on WhatsApp that he should message you on mastodon but you're already looking at the thread anyway, so I'm behind the times haha
@FreakyFwoof hey! Definitely, and thanks for picking it up. I’d completely forgotten the issue number and had too much going on to follow up.
@FreakyFwoof yeah I have arch and cosmic is the 3rd de I’ve got on the system, after every update I go check it. At least they know what mad effort is involved, they aren’t just bundling orca and calling it a day. Would love to know where the push came from.
Can I just say I am following this series avidly. Been dreading the switch to Wayland and the posts have been very useful, as well as cathartic. I'd support this initiative financially if you continue this work.
@RichieRich this is the Blog i was talking about yesterday with great Insights into current Linux Accessibility. Just wanted to tag you before I loose it again :D
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For those who aren't in the know, Bookworm is a really cool reading app that is compatible with over 20 different document formats. You can find a rundown of its features and how to download it by following this link: ddt.one/en/software/bookworm
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This has saved me a bunch of times, so might be useful to other people. When I change firewall rules on a remote machine, I always run the following command:
And then I hit control-C after a few seconds. If my ssh session is still working, this cancels the
# service pf restart && sleep 30 && service pf stop<br>And then I hit control-C after a few seconds. If my ssh session is still working, this cancels the
service pf stop command. If I've managed to break my ssh connection with the rule change, the firewall is disabled after 30 seconds and I can revert the changes and reenable it.reshared this
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Unknown parent
Unknown parent
New in Foobar2000 for Mac V2.25 preview: "Added keyboard shortcut mapping functionality."
Yeeees!!!! This is what I've been waiting for for ages. The Mac version received everything else I used, and behaves very similarly and runs just as quickly as the Windows version, but literal 0 support for hotkeys was a dealbreaker. It goes without saying that, like the Windows version you need to go in and set up the keys yourself and at least for this initial preview there is absolutely no default hotkeys defined where the Windows one at least has some menu items configured. It also currently doesn't support global shortcuts or hotkeys without a modifier so sadly still no space to play or pause for me. Even then this is a huge improvement and I can actually see myself using this as my default player now also on Mac. You can download from here
CC @masonasons think you were also waiting for this.
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Fun project for friday evening. I am hosting some unmaintained web sites for a few friends and they help me to pay the hosting costs in return.
Now I have found out I need php 7.4 for some of these and it's not readily available so building php 7.4.33 on up to date arch linux.
I am afraid this will no longer be possible in the future. How do you deal with this? Can I run PHP in some kind of lightweight container?
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Random reminder that #BillGates is the reason why AstraZeneca #COVID vaccine is patent-encumbered:
wired.com/story/opinion-the-wo…
> Gates bragged about convincing Oxford University not to open-license its vaccine. Gates leveraged his $750 million donation to the university for vaccine research—even though its vaccine was developed in a publicly funded lab. Eventually, Oxford sold the sole right of production to AstraZeneca, with no guarantee of low prices and an extraordinary opportunity for profit.
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2025-05-15 18:11:13
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in reply to Tristan
For my disabled followers, what do you consider when thinking about inclusive swag? Swag in this case meaning t-shirts, coffee mugs, backpacks, stickers, etc. that you acquire through conferences, work, or other places.
I struggle to name what I look for in swag for it to be inclusive as a blind person; I think the most I'd look for is cool tactile design on t-shirts and perhaps embossed designs on stickers. But even that's a stretch; I've never felt strongly enough to remotely consider this, and that's why I'm here! I also consider things like Braille to be a novelty, and don't feel excluded when it doesn't exist. In a nutshell--I don't really care. But I'm sure someone out there does. Surely there's at least one of you.
Please boost for reach.
#disabled #accessibility #blind #swag
I struggle to name what I look for in swag for it to be inclusive as a blind person; I think the most I'd look for is cool tactile design on t-shirts and perhaps embossed designs on stickers. But even that's a stretch; I've never felt strongly enough to remotely consider this, and that's why I'm here! I also consider things like Braille to be a novelty, and don't feel excluded when it doesn't exist. In a nutshell--I don't really care. But I'm sure someone out there does. Surely there's at least one of you.
Please boost for reach.
#disabled #accessibility #blind #swag
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2025-05-08 20:59:09
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in reply to Pietervdvn
in reply to TΞX
in reply to kfinity
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According to #openstreetmap, there are no Man_made=chimney in #Vatican City... I was wondering where the conclave-#chimney is. Can someone fix?
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as far as i know it's not a permanent chimney, it's installed just for the conclave and will be removed.
@textoo that's true, although the hole for the chimney is permanent and can be seen at (41.9029867, 12.4546558), just south of the eastern peak of the Sistine Chapel
@textoo should've said "I think" the hole is permanent. Anyway, some background here: smokemachines.net/papal-smoke.…
Papal Vote - Sistine Chapel Conclave Chimney Smoke
A look at the smoke system in the Sistine Chapel for Papal conclave voting and announcing a new Pope to the world through black or white smoke being issued.www.smokemachines.net
Maybe it's god_made=chimney in this case?
man_made=chimney AFAIK is used for industrial chimneys (mainly tall standalone ones) not ones of the sort found in the Vatican.
Reusing the tag for the one on the Sistine Chapel would degrade the semantics of the existing objects tagged man_made=chimney.
This may have already hsppened if someone used it in micromapping houses.
Notwithstanding that, it needs to be resisted. At some fairly low percentage of a different semantic meaning for the tag, the original meaning is lost catastrophically. The impact is mist significant for analytical uses.
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"Milestone for digital sovereignty": 20 years of the Open Document Format (ODF)
The Document Foundation celebrates the 20th anniversary of adoption of ODF as an OASIS standard. This promotes global digital independence and interoperability.
heise.de/en/news/Milestone-for…
#IT #LibreOffice #OpenSource #news
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Sean Randall
in reply to Guillem Leon • • •