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The State of Linux Accessibility
Dog's_Breakfast writes "This week's edition of DistroWatch Weekly News features a unique story entitled 'Linux Accessibility — What is it and Why Does It Matter?' The article was written by Robert Cole, a blind person with a computer science degree. Mr Cole points out that Linux offers an excellent set of free tools for seeing-impaired users. Putting together a similar set of tools on Windows would cost at least US$600, about double what a retail copy of Windows itself costs."
Close your eyes. Let your mind take control. And turn your brain into a dance floor.
Dance floor build initiated.
Start the drums. Building graph sequence. And the baseline created the melody. Melody programmed.
Now, add the people. Enter access code... Access granted.
Welcome to the dance floor. Here is your DJ, Armin van Buuren. This is... THE STATE OF LINUX ACCESSABILITY!
Because you can do everything with the command line. Keyboard text input. Spoken text output.
...Because when I saw "accessibility" I immediately thought "ease-of-use" and had a laugh.
When you boot up an Ubuntu live CD or USB drive, press CTRL+S when you hear a drum sound. This will start the Orca screen reader, and you can either try Ubuntu using Orca or install Ubuntu with your eyes closed; it's entirely your choice. I was able to do a complete installation (including partitioning my drives) without having to look at my screen!
Didn't know about this option. I have to say that this is pretty cool.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
It has tons of accessibility features for the visually impaired if you know where to look.
I get this same feeling every time I lose my glasses. The bitter irony of having to look for your glasses...
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
...because the article is about accessibility tools for seeing-impaired users?
There are a lot of people in the world who have sensitive eyes. A lot more than the blind. And still there is a lot of software that uses the black-text-on-white-background color scheme. Of all the possible choices, this is the one that causes the worst eyestrain. So if you are a software developer, take pity on hurting and watering eyes and allow us to use a darker color scheme. Windows Aero, I'm (not) looking at you!
Because it lends credibility to him writing an article about accessibility, which is mostly about the blind when it comes to computers.
Putting together a similar set of tools on Windows would cost at least US$600, about double what a retail copy of Windows itself costs
If you want the impaired version of windows, otherwise.....
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I used to work with a blind programmer. He is a Linux geek. Every year or two he tries the screen readers in Linux, and says they all suck compared to Jaws in Windows (including Orca).
So he does all his email, web browsing, etc in Windows, as well as as much programming as he can get away with. For him Linux has been relegated to a toy he plays with once in a while.
Beetle B.
Because as a person with good site your views on accessibility features are quite different then someone who is blind. A webpage using graphic as text without a good alt tag could be the difference between a good ui and a bad one. Or even just the fact that someone when a form requires something to be filled in it may just be in a different color. Most UI enhancements are visual. I myself have good eye site, and operate my computer with the speakers on Mute, So my perception of a good UI is based on my site. Having known a few people who are blind, I understand that their perception of computing is much different, and you things that you take for granted are much different.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I just wonder how a blind user knows whether the install CD is inserted the right way up in the first place.
And I'll add that this is important because, as a sighted developer who once worked on a website specifically intended for blind users, I know it's ridiculously easy to make really bad assumptions about what blind people want. That design with a list of options arranged to be read first is great for a front page, but gets really annoying after it's read on every page....
Sighted people suck.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
That's tough if you are a student or if you need your computer for work related activities. Believe me, I've been there.
I think that's part of the problem: employers are willing to pay inflated prices for assistive tech in order to deter disability discrimination lawsuits.
Well, I would hate to try using computer with no hands. I was almost there once. I got a medical condition that disables legs and hands and spent almost 4 months in hospital. The lucky thing is, it only affected my legs and my hands continued to work. That meant four full months of nerding in bed while nurses brought me food, drinks and took my shit (I had to literally shit in bed as I couldn't move).
I'm not contesting the fact that your friend's blind. He might even be a good blind computer user. But it seems he doesn't meet the requirements of a "Linux geek". A Linux geek is one who doesn't just play with or treat Linux as a toy. How can one be a "something" geek, if you don't use that something regularly. Call him a Windows geek or a computer (in general) geek, but not a Linux geek.
Odd, being highly visually impared, I've found Windows to be much easier to work with than a Mac. Mind you, I'm not completely blind, so I don't know about how well the screen reader software is (though, in my experience, it isn't so bad). Also, without doing anything special, I can use the keyboard for almost everything in Windows. The only Mac user I know, who uses the keyboard for everything, had to do quite a lot of tweaking to set it up.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Anybody who isn't on welfare switched to OS X years ago.
Yep, even my blind aunt agrees. She thinks it's sad Apple ran out of cat names, and that Swahili was an odd choice, but "Ubuntu" is her new favourite OS.
A couple months ago there was a great hacker public radio episode where a linux dev told stories about working on accessibility and then cried for helpful volunteers because everyone in the corporate financed linux accessibility community is/was getting downsized.
It was a recording of a speech at a con.
It was an excellent talk, about average sound quality for HPR (in other words not great, but tolerable) and probably in the top 1% of HPR episodes WRT content.
I can't successfully google for it, if someone else can find it, I'd recommend listening to it.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Because it lends credibility to him writing an article about accessibility, which is mostly about the blind when it comes to computers.
Why? Better lobbying than other groups?
There are far more severely rheumatic people than blind people, yet little effort is put into giving options to reduce mouse movements (and especially moving between keyboard and mouse) or being able to reassign keys to reachable ones.
Then there are mental issues - another large group. Some effort is put in, but not enough. Some people with dementia may have to learn how to use the computer ever day. If the user can't learn to adjust to the computer, the computer has to learn to adjust to the user.
Then there are colour blind people - mostly men. Having an option to sacrifice colour correctness to get the colour contrast that works best for your type of colour blindness would be nice.
Or the deaf? What happened to subtitles?
What is more irrelevant is the CS degree.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm sure this review proves the suitability of Linux for all other visually impaired users with computing science degrees.
Meanwhile, for all other visually impaired users...
All of those are requirements for accessibility. You're right that being accessible is about more than just about blindness or low vision. This article, however, seems to be pretty specifically focused on the screen-reader issue of accessibility.
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Your comment is a bit confusing, I consider the "edge of the spindle hole" to be the actual physical hole --- but the ridge you're describing is at the edge of the non-writable/readable area around the hole, in the middle of a flat section of the disc. The hole itself is totally flat on the side which goes down, and on the other side has a small step recess (or possibly a better word would be "bevel").
A burned optical disc cannot be modified by malware --- which is, simultaneously, its strength and also weakness (since the OS burned on it will always boot unpatched).
I'm still waiting for the USB sticks with the true write-protect switches to become available again --- but I'm not holding my breath. Know of any solution for this need? It would be even better if there was some open interface which could lock some partitions while leaving others writeable!
Or rely on the fact that a sticker feels different from the plastic on the side with the data.
Do you know of any easy way to rely on that without getting fingerprints all over the data side?
You've already seen a double side CD?
No, but I've seen a double-sided (stamped) DVD, and I've read of a double-sided (stamped) DualDisc that has a DVD on one side and a (non-conforming) mostly-CD-compatible layer on the other.
"Putting together a similar set of tools on Windows would cost at least US$600, about double what a retail copy of Windows itself costs"
Why the hell is it compared to the cost of the OS? This is like saying, "Broken leg? How much would you pay for crutches? $50, $100? That's twice what you paid for *pants*. Here's this FREE solution of a stick and some duct tape!"
It's great that it's becoming at least partially commoditized, but, really, for something that you will actually use every day that could save you hours of frustration, $600 is peanuts.
You're right, your description is clearer. Thanks for the clarification.
I think your drive is installed upside down.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Dye in a fire.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I hope you did play WoW, just to piss them off.
An interesting and related problem: A website aimed at the deaf took the time to provide video of their site translated into ASL. At first glance, this seems stupid - many deaf people can read perfectly well. But it actually turns out that people who were born deaf or became deaf in early childhood have significant literacy problems, especially if they learned ASL first, because reading English engages the auditory senses.
Asking a sighted person on how to design properly for the blind, or a hearing person on how to design properly for the deaf, makes about as much sense as asking a marketing guy about how to design a web server: They may have some ideas, but will have no clue which ones are good.
I am officially gone from
OS X is still the only OS that doesn't have any way to uniformly scale all UI elements up (say, to 150%). Which is a major pain if you have poor eyesight, or just want to use a Mac Mini with a 30" TV.
It is proof positive that he has relevant experience. He's not just guessing what it's like to depend on accessibility tools.
It happened to my friend. No hands, no legs.
First we fixed phone: after some research with Android (not really Linux) we ended up
with 5 year old bluetooth car installation: the only one where you can make calls without
any keys, just sound.
Computer is next: some tests were made using joystick (manipulated by head movement)
installed on wheelchair. Not really fun.
There are some expensive monitors with build in infrared cameras tracking eye movement.
Any experience on Linux desktop? Any advice what works?
Thanks,
s52d
A retail copy of Windows costs $300? I guess you're including the price of the netbook?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
What tools/features are you using for Windows? I'm legally blind, -22 diopters of correction for each eye. What I'm currently using is a modified dark theme so that I can use the built in accelerated magnifier (I can't tolerate bright themes) and I've mapped the magnifier to win+mouse wheel to make it more like compiz. I'm also nearly entirely hotkey driven, I use the mouse very little for every day tasks.
Of course there are so many applications that don't follow the windows colour scheme, even the built in High Contrast classic theme is ignored by so many apps, hardcoded font colours and so on.
What really erks me are web pages. I use Firefox with Stylish (or just vanilla FF and set my custom colours to my taste) but most sites have issues rendering correctly because it overrides a lot of colour/style rules.
I can't really comment on Linux's features as I don't use Linux as a desktop, just for servers. Mostly because it doesn't run my music software or my games and I hate dual booting.
Accessibility is still a joke in Windows and for internet browsing.
The zoom feature is really useful for visually impaired.
A few years back I introduced a young man to Linux. His name was Bob Cole, he was blind in one eye, mostly blind in the other, was very interested in accessibility features, and he moved from Ohio to California. What are the odds that this is the same person?
I was actually looking for information on this for a blind friend. Is there Linux distro anyone knows of with these features already installed and turned on?
Sam Hartman and Mario Lang gave a talk and demonstration of accessibility in Debian in 2009, covering various software in Debian (and Windows). Video is linked from the talk page.
Look at knoppix, the lead guy's wife is blind and tests it.
-26 here.
I use the magnifier (in certain situations), and then the standard font/color change tool. I prefer Windows XP over Vista/7 because you can make input elements separate from other things, whereas in Vista/7 many non-input-elements have the same color as input elements :-(
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I know, the hard coded font stuff pisses me off to no end.
I need win7 for my music production software, it needs a lot of RAM and WinXP's magnifier isn't full screen, doesn't use acceleration so it's a pretty rubbish magnifier for me personally. I really wish I could do what I do, apart from work, in Linux (gaming, music prod) because then I could use KDE/Gnome which is a lot better with themes, and Compiz's magnifier is really nice.
Oddly enough, Windows 8 has much better theme control, although it's bloody ugly. If you use the 'classic' dark theme, you can still benefit from the full screen magnifier and a lot of the UI elements behave better in terms of using correct user chosen colors.. I'm just not terribly fond of Win8's metro thing and some other stuff irritates me. But I'll give it a bash once the final version is out and see how much I can gain from it, accessibility wise.
If you don't mind me asking, were your eyes that bad from birth? It's very rare I find someone with eyesight as bad/worse than mine, it's quite comforting to know there are others out there, and are also geeks :)
Yes, it runs in the family.
That's nice to hear, about Win8
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).