2019-02-02 16:39:41 (edited by queenslight 2019-11-23 19:57:30)

Introduction

The idea for this thread, was inspired by the Going Linux Podcast , which you "should" give a listen to, and has been going strong since 2006.

There is a segment on said show called "Gone Linux," where listeners take the time to write about why they personally took the time to get away from the Windows crowd and "Go Westward!"

One particular person, switched to Linux, because of a TED Talk that Bill Gates gave, which didn't settle well with said individual. The topic itself refferenced  in said talk, should have its own thread by itself some day...

History

1. While running a Windows Insider Build on my Dell Venue 11 Pro which I bought from Action Computers in November of 2018 (just before Microsoft Edge switched to the "Chromium" engine for their browser,) I ran the latest update and well... Not having made a "recovery drive" at the time... Yep? Totally my fault folks.
2. I have ran Linux in the past just to experience it, from Ubuntu 7.04 to Vinux 4.0, to Open Suse 11.3, to Ubuntu 18.04, to Sonar GNU/Linux (when it was around,) to Trisqual 8.0.
Some of those above where only in Virtual Machines, while a few were via DVD or CD, and on an old Dell Latitude D630.
3. From listening to back in the day "ACB Main Menu" podcasts on Linux from "Matt Camble" and "Marc Mulcahy" from the days of "Sun Micro Systems" and "Level Star" who did a "4 part" series on Gnopernicus , to the amazing "Listen And Learn Recordings" that were done by "Darragh Ó Héiligh."
NB. As of this writing, all of the peopl's recordings listed above, are "for now" at least, "lost" to the public.
4. I can't forget the many people who have wanted me and have guided me going down this route. The two main ones being Kyle and Daniel
Bonus: I enjoy "Chrome OS" lots!

Am I still gonna do "Windows Gaming" even if it is via WINE or future maybe in a VM? You bet! /I don't mind getting myself "messy" folks... That's why I love the GNU/Linux world!

Today (As Of the 9th of November 2019

I now own a Thinkpad X240 (which ya can read more about it here Even though said PC is not running a Linux OS, I constantly test distros in via Virtual Machine software.

Conclusion

So, what makes or would make  you want to try or go Linux full time? What makes ya "NOT" want to go Linux? If a favorite feature /application was more accessible or if you were willing to adapt/fix said feature, would you switch? Also, have you played with Linux in the past, and what were/are your thoughts of Linux present/future?

And with that (borrowing a quote from the Blind Bargains Qast, "It's Your Turn To Sound Off!"

2019-02-02 16:51:15

What made me go Linux full time?

I was tired of Win10. Alright, I use Web Skype, okay. But I also distro hop a lot. My current project, and this is OT, is to get TinyFugue working on Solus Mate (there's a distro to check out, Queens). One other thing that pushed me away from Windows. Cost. For the price of a new computer, with Windows 10....I could buy a cheap laptop that runs Linux perfectly fine. Not to get this into a flamewar, but add in Jaws (which my local computer shop tried to sell me with a Windows machinen), and I decided hey, boom, laptop, Linux. Check.

And.....not looked back. Is it perfect? No. But it is a lot, LOT easier to fix and customize things......that Windows. For example, I can go into the code for my desktop environment and if I so desire, change the panel layouts in Mate, and change, for example, the menu behavior, I can customize nearly everything, and with careful and judicious use of WINE, I can run Windows programs on Linux systems.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-02 16:54:09

Also, @Queeens.

Here's some distros to check out:

Ubuntu Mate 18.04
Solus Mate
Also pay attention if you go Ubuntu of when support ends, for instance in April, 14.04/Linux Mint 17 will not get any more updates and you won't be able to install software once the repos go away. That being said, Pick the you feel most at home in. Each has pros and cons.yo

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-02 17:12:40

@JaceK

I've been lately going back and forth between either using Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu normal with the Mate desktop on top, or going the "Jenux" way, assuming I can get out of a problem easily if one occured.
I have looked at Solus via a VM, and the only concern (which ain't the distro itself,) is its package line up.

My favorite Mate desktop themes by the way, are the Redmond as they function and look like a "Windows" machine.
If you use a Mac, these Macintosh Themes should be up your alley.

2019-02-02 17:21:28

Solus though has had snap/flatpack support for ages, so that sort of alleviates package concerns. but yes. Stock Ubuntu Mate is pretty nice. Nice, if I could get a stable, rolling release, with the depth of packages Ubuntu offers.....I'd be set.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-02 18:35:10

I did go linux, for a time. It lasted maybe three months, then I got tired of it. First off, what people don't tell the newcomers is that the thing is fraught with accessibility issues. You have to set this environment variable to enable this feature, none of which are laid out in a centralized place. Now you won't get that if you install a mainstream distro with orca enabled, like Debian and Ubuntu. They configure certain things at install time just to get you going. Then you mess with Ubuntu mate 18.10, and don't even get the latest mate. If I install mate on Arch, I get an accessible version, without which the top and bottom bars wouldn't work, and things would read through other windows. Also, you are always breaking something. It's so easy to break sound, then you're up a certain body of voluminous brown liquid without a certain type of propulsion mechanism. So you ought to have a braille display as a backup if you break sound, or like, reboot and hoooooooooope, a thousand times hope the changes didn't actually save, but they probably did. No sound means no speech, and you basically are yeah... just, yeah.

Then you're either running programs under wine or virtualizing windows. Now, let me put it to all the linux peeps out here. What would you estimate your ratio is between running apps under wine vs. native linux apps. I'd wager they're not far from one another. So if most of your stuff is being done through wine, why not just use windows.

I think everybody by now knows all the good points about switching, so I don't see any reason to reiterate those. I'm just trying to point out it's not all a bed of roses. You're gonna have problems, and when you do, you better know how to fix them or know someone who will help you. For a server, no question, none at all, use Linux. FOr a desktop, ehh, I would if I had a windows machine for when I just need to get something done without needing to screw around with stuff.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2019-02-02 18:44:21

@Iron:

I....personally, have had few acessibility issues with a stock 18.04 Ubuntu Mate. However I had all the problems you desribed with, hilariously a 'blind friendly' distro. Whereas the stock Mate works out of the box and works fine for me. I have had not a lot break with Orca or sound, despite running Orca-master.

Is my setup perfect? No. But. It does what I want it to do. It lets me do my things on a daily basis. I'll argue though you are generalizing, Iron, that you will break stuff. You may, or may not break stuff depending on what you do. However you may or may not break stuff onWindows doing things as well, or things may break on their own though.

You keep saying oh, you'll lose sound. Personally, I haven't experienced this on a well supported distro, again, Ubuntu Mate 18.04.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-02 21:11:49

I might have to run Debian. I do like my arch linux but I like the fact that I can setup debian as a server or install it as a desktop. You can do the same on arch as well. You could also rn your own desktop if you install the bare bones on debian and I like the bare bones.

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2019-02-02 21:45:59 (edited by Ethin 2019-02-02 21:48:31)

I've ran many Linux distros and have fallen in love with Arch. But I get Ironcross32's issues with it too -- it is incredibly easy to break things, and when you do, and you ask someone who's very good with it, your bound to get an answer that's more confusing than helpful. I've learned and (I suppose) mastered Linux through a combination of breaking things, performing a lot of research, testing things, and doing a lot of other things I "shouldn't" be doing. And so I can also see why someone like Dark would find Linux useless -- practically everything in Linux revolves around the terminal, and Linux brings so many concepts to the table that many people aren't familiar with and they don't understand them. There is no central authority on Linux like Mac and Windows have (though people have tried). There isn't an authority that gives you the details in an easy-to-understand system but allows you to dig deeper if you like. When you look up commands or help on Linux, you have to explicitly specify your distribution or you'll get a hundred different (and probably wrong) answers. Not wrong in the sense that their incorrect but wrong in the sense that they either won't work on your distribution or don't apply to you at that time. Take a look at the Jenux topic, you'll see exactly what I mean by over-technological, hard-to-understand-for-a-newcomer answers.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-02-02 21:57:55

Yes, but Arch is not the only distro around.

Personally.....I've had a lot less issues with the stock distros, Ubuntu, Solus Mate/Gnome, even hwhen I ran Fedora in a VM....than with specialized 'accessible' distros though. That's something to bear in mind. I'm not on about Arch, i'm on about what I, personally have experienced.

@Iron: You could have prefaced your post by saying you're on about one or two specific branches and/or distros.

@Ethin: Not everyone runs Arch. I wanted to, but the whole host of issues I've had with Jenux have put me off of it nuking a HD in the process....sorta puts me off Arch for life, really.

Personally, I'd much rather just install a system, hit next, next, next, install it, boom, done. Enable Orca, and.....go from there, and tweak my system as I go. I like the idea of 'accessible first' Distros, your Vinuxes, Coconuts, Jenuxes, Sonarrs of the world, but (in my case) I find they include a lot of stuff I personally don't need or use.

No distro is 100% perfect. Ubuntu, for example doesn't have certain things I want (Seamonkey's a big one) in its official repos. Arch requires me to read a lot to install, or read my way through the wiki and double check each step. Fedor'as a bitch to get running. Mint's using Ubuntu's repos, see Ubuntu's issues in htis sentence....and so forth.
My ideal distro would be:

Simplicity of Ubuntu to install
Power and software choice of Arch
Orca out of the box on a live desktop image
Idiot proof but I can dive into a termianl
Desktop choices
No need to reinstall for point releases
Works great on older hardware

So....I know that distro won't happen unless I feel like making it. Soooo......closest I can get?

Or, ya know, that distro could be out there and I just not found it yet.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-02 23:06:02

@10, very true. Jenux can put you off. I know that ARch isn't the only distro, but I like it, and its probably the most customizable (besides Gentoo).

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-02-02 23:07:19 (edited by Stealthy 2020-09-30 15:45:57)

This post has been removed as it contained invalid information, I apoligize.

My main interest is tech.
Follow me on twitter if you would like, my username is @stealthy153

2019-02-03 00:35:41

@12, no, you can't get NVDA for Linux. Yet anyway.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-02-03 07:24:19

I mentioned this over in the "Accessible Gaming On Linux" topic. But just for simplicity, here's the list of accessible Linux distros you can easily get into, though I'm adding another one, since I forgot it in the other thread!

Ubuntu Mate:
http://ubuntu-mate.org
Ubuntu:
http://ubuntu.com
Solus:
https://getsol.us/
paldo:
https://www.paldo.org
Trisquel:
http://trisquel.info
Accessible Coconut:
http://www.cocofrix.com/downloads.php
NB. Documentation can be found on the desktop.

Also, have a look at the following:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easy-wind … ux-switch/

As you'll probably notice, most of the distros come with the "Mate Desktop" by default. Why? Well, it just works! Not that GNOME isn't a bad desktop...

2019-02-03 09:44:14

Btw, just as a helpful warning, be careful to make sure your distribution that you choose supports secure boot if you have a newer computer that uses that, otherwise, it will be a no go for you. big_smile

Antergos was another good , customizable one, however, it is Arch-based and again, does not support secure boot.

2019-02-03 10:06:17

@15, most Linux distros don't, purely because it is very difficult to get an OS to boot with secure boot enabled if its not in the database of trusted keys. You can sign all the images you like, but unless your firmware trusts the signed bootloader and kernel, your screwed.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-02-03 12:56:20

Agreed with ironcross and ethin regarding linux desktop experience. I also have had my frustrating moments; I do regret that i can't just  see the screen, Working with penetration testing tools and Orca is an absolute nightmare.
I do use arch linux on my secondary laptop. I think arch is such a great system because it's much more simpler, I understand it better, tons of online guides and tutorials are there for it, even though linux community dislike arch users for being major pain in the ass, i find them very helpful most of the times and personally do not understand the hate that evolves around arch users.
And lastly the Arch User Repository has very useful tools on it, I probably can't live without it.
I wonder how would antergos do with mate installed. Last time i checked, gnome was a fu*k fest, I could not even work with the sound settings window properly.

twitter: @hadirezae3
discord: Hadi

2019-02-03 19:39:47

I don't see how Ubuntu mate could be considered accessible when last I tried it, which was their 18.10 release, Mate was still very much in an unworking state. The welcome center screen kept stopping the terminal from speaking, I had to use xkill to get rid of it. The top and bottom bars were not accessible, and overall, nothing worked well. Mate on it's own, so long as you get it in Arch, or build it yourself in your distro of choice, works fine. You do get the accessibility of the top and bottom bars, it doesn't do that read everything underlying the foremost window thing, and there is no Ubuntu mate welcome screen to screw up. Literally that thing would not close on it's own, was completely uninteractable, and, as long as it was open, caused havok even if it was backgrounded.

Trisquel I would doubt as well but I haven't tried it so can't say for sure.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2019-02-03 22:27:10

Trisquel requires your computer to have completely open components. It does not, and most likely will not, have support for closed-source drivers. So that pretty much excludes over 95 percent of the computing market for desktops (and even servers, if I'm not mistaken).

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-02-03 22:52:36

Pretty much.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2019-02-03 23:27:14

I was just warning anyone thinking of going Linux, in case they had secure boot. I do happen to have a computer that doesn't use secure boot, so yea for that, but bummer for those who don't.

BTW, Ubuntu does support secure boot by the way. big_smile

2019-02-04 01:45:07

Hello,
I am, myself, "going linux".
However, I would like a few questions answered first:
1. Is it possible to use google chrome on linux accessibly?
2. How accessible is skype on linux?
3. If I were to want to run audio games or windows programs, how easy is it to make grafical ones, that is, ones with standard windows controls (buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons) work in wine, or will those only work in a virtual machine?
Thanks
P.s. My current distro of choice is ubuntu mate, but I haven't done much customising or playing around yet.
I do like arch and debian but debian has very out-of-date packages and arch I don't feel comfortable enough with to use as a main OS.

But sometimes the world is better without sight...
Because You can see the world how it really is...
Dark.

2019-02-04 04:05:12 (edited by Ethin 2019-02-04 04:07:23)

@potterspotter13, accessibility for windows applications is non-existent in Wine. You can get audio games to work in it but Orca will not read controls of any kind to you, nor will it be able to interface with Wine. Your best bet would be to virtualize Windows if you want to run windows anything. I would not myself run anything through Wine owing to its instability and touchyness. Windows works [all the time], wine doesn't. It doesn't help that you have to hack together crappy solutions to even get SAPI and audio games to function properly. If anyone wants to prove anything I've written in this post wrong, please do, and provide evidence and all that, standard procedure for proving anything false/true.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-02-04 04:15:23

For "many" Debian-based distros (which have a live environment,) you can press Alt-Super-S (Super key being the "Windows" key,) to toggle on/off the Orca screen reader.
For the above and all other distros which have Orca preinstalled, you can also press Alt-F2 to enter in  a run comand, then type in the word "Orca" to turn it on that way.

Here's some web sites to get people started in the world of Linux in an Accesible way. (Even if some of the info may or may not be "partially" out of date.)


https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Accessibility
http://linux-speakup.org/
https://linux-a11y.org/
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html
https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Accessibility
https://wiki.debian.org/accessibility
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki
http://slint.fr/wiki/en/accessibility
https://wiki.gnome.org/Accessibility
https://wiki.vinuxproject.org/


For "KDE Accessibility," see the following sites, as its an "on-going" thing:

http://accessibility.kde.org
https://blogs.fsfe.org/gladhorn/

2019-02-04 04:32:25

@potterspotter13

Wanting to use Skype on Linux?
Your best way these days, is via

https://web.skype.com/

As for Chromevox, it depends on the distro used.

If using the "Accessible Coconut" distro, choose the "Chromium," with Speech" option.

If using an Arch distro, either grab the "Chrome" or "Chromium" Chromevox package, depending on which browser ya prefer using.
   

For all other distros, you need to install Chrome browser and the Chromevox screen reader extension from within the "Chrome Web Store" manually.
Yes, said process can be done. I've done it 3 times already
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