2019-02-05 10:39:24

@48 and @49

Ubuntu Mate and/or Debian, would "fly!" on that thing.


@46

Indeed... Unless you're gonna throw a "light-weight" Linux distro on that bad boy and use the OS atom processors were "really" made for, amscray!

PS. Slint would be a wonderful distro for said device too now that I think of it...

2019-02-05 11:06:23

@50

Definitely!

If you haven't read the Emacspeak Manual from cover to cover (or at least the "basics,) Emacs ain't for ya!

The same goes for using the following four other editors. Ya don't have to use all of them, and ya can pick the one that's best for ya, though at least get the basics down!

1.  VIM
2. GNU Nano
3. Gedit
4. Pluma

NB. the last two in the above list by default, depends on the desktop used.

Gedit = "GNOME"
Pluma = "Mate"

2019-02-05 17:24:12

Uh... you don't really need to do much reading to get to use Nano.

"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

2019-02-05 17:34:25

True, since the primary commands are always displayed.

2019-02-05 18:07:01

On the note of default apps....nano is VERY easy to use, Just type and hit ctrl+X to exit, it'll ask if you want to save the buffer, so hit yes to save it.

Also, I'm liking Chromium and ChromeVox now I figured it out. The two things that bug me....a) Settings can't be read by ChromeVox. b) The simple fact Chromevox won't work in incognito mode.

Also, Pluma is something I personally prefer over Gedit.

Also @Iron: You can turn off the welcome screen in startup applications, that's one of the first things I've done on mine.

Now. A question. Okay, I like Mate and on 18.04 LTS have few issues with it that I can't find easy fixes for.....

So. I'd like to keep a lightweight backup browser. What's the easiest to use with Orca one?

Secondly....is there a command line switch I can put into Chromium to set the home page or no?

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-05 18:39:51 (edited by queenslight 2019-02-05 18:44:21)

For Chromevox with Chrome or Chromium, press alt-shift-q "twice" by default to switch between Chromevox Next and the same key combination "once" for going back to Chromevox classic.
NB. When  switching to Chromevox Next, make sure to press "CTRL-R" to do a page refresh.
While in use, you can navigate the "Settings" and "Extension" screens with speech thankfully, unlike with Chromevox Classic.
By the way, to make Chromevox work while in "private" windows, you need to use Chromevox Next to set that up, but then ya can go bck to Chromevox Classic if ya like tha setup.
Please visit

http://www.chromevox.com

, for a list of Chromevox Next keyboard shortcuts. If you chose the "flat" key layout from Chromevox Classic for example, but then switch to Chromevox Next, you'll have to reset the keymap  back to the one you were using, as  yo'll be using the "Chromevox Next" key map.
I hope the above makes sense there, and sorry for any typing errors which I may have missed!

PS. Visit
chrome://chrome-urls
from within the "omnibar," for a list of all of the Chrome URLs that can be gotten to from there.

2019-02-05 18:54:04

Besides Chromevox with either Chrome or Chromium, your best GUI browsers include:

1. Firefox (which comes with most distros by default.)
2. Seamonkey

Other browsers include "Pale Moon" and "Waterfox," though you may have to install them manually.

2019-02-05 20:23:00

Okay, next Chromium Q.
How do I permanently turn off autofill for forms, exactly?

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-05 21:03:41

Search for the words auto fill, in the settings screen.

2019-02-05 21:07:16

That....unfortunately doesn't give any search results, I got into settings and looked for autofill. Nothing there.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-05 22:21:33

Ah, ok!

Press ctrl-shift-delete, then tab to the auto fill forms check box, and make sure its checked.
Also, if said option isn't under the "basic" tab, its under advanced.
You can also look under "privacy settings" as well, to be safe.

2019-02-05 23:06:34

No that's not what I want. I want to turn the autofill off completely in Chromium, not delete my history and such.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-06 00:05:06

Ok, read the following page, carefully!

https://www.lifewire.com/disable-autofi … me-4103633

2019-02-07 10:28:09

So I have now "Gone Linux". Thanks to everyone who provided solutions to issues I braight up, on and off the forum.

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

2019-02-07 15:57:12

@potterspotter13

Congrats!

2019-02-08 23:09:05

So. Question....

My ideal distro has these qualities....

1. Stable

2. No EOL

3. Quick development

4. Easy for absolutely anyone to use

5. Easy to install and configure

So. Given those. Which gets closest?

I'll add 6* Must be accessible, for a live system that means Orca out of the box.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-09 10:58:39

Okay ya'll, these are my oppinions, as I've used Linux off and on for a few years now:

TL; DR: I always go back to Windows because Linux accessibility issues, lack of features, and Windows has all the programs and games I need. And with chocolatey, it has a package manager, too.

So, I first started Linux with Vinux on an old laptop that couldn't access its hard drive. Great, yes. I tren tried Sonar, which was the best distro for the blind, until it merged with Vixun and they both fell. Then I went with arch, which has also failed. Emacs and Emacspeak were working fine, I had Voxin, all was pretty nice, but few games, no good way to read email because Gnus and its rather iffy way of just marking emails as read instead of deleting them, but I loved how to showed conversations in a line, not a tree, and just went from one topic messages to the next, never skipping one like Mac Mail does sometimes with topics with lots of messages.

I then went with Fedora, but again, no good mail client, no great games or sound packs, sure there's the Tintin-* sound packs, but seriously, they sound unprofessional at best, childish at worst. Again, these are opinions.

So, a few weeks ago, I tried Slint. Beginner friendly? No, not at all, and sometimes the creator or Slint seems to not really know what he's doing. So, I went with the tried and somewhat true Fedora 29. Still a mess, Gnome control center is 10% accessible, such a joke. And this is what Orca is developed on?

So, after all that mess, and Voxin not being supported on Fedora 29, or 28, or 27, or 26... I came to the conclution that I might as well just use Windows. Sure, there isn't a good mail client there, Thunderbird is accessible but not nearly efficient, and sure no Voxin, and no Emacspeak that is anywhere up-to-date and the one that we do have doesn't have support for voice-lock-mode, basically font changes for speech. But Windows has Windows Sonic for Headphones, sound enhancements, multiple GUI screen readers that are actually updated, not just clean of large bugs. Heck, Orca doesn't even have automatic language switching. Even TalkBack has that now, which is extremely embarrassing for any Linux user. Fenrir is pretty good, but really, I'd love to see some one use Facebook efficiently on the command line, or browse the audio games forum and post, thumb up, private message, all that as efficiently as in a GUI web browser.

I've also come to the realization that Linux will never be for us. Sure, a few blind people good with scripting and coding could put together a distro, but it won't last that long, seen in the rise and fall of Sonar/Vinux. We are few, and even if a sighted developer is working on a screen reader near to the Gnome source, in fact I believe Orca is a Gnome project, just look at the Gnome settings center to see how well the other, non-disability-related developers listen to this one Orca developer. Seriously, if the blind want Linux, the "community" of Linux users and developers have to support them, not just say "yeah inclusion good hyuck hyuck."

So, I'm back on Windows, and even though it isn't free and open and makes laptops general purpose computers again and all that, it at least is very accessible, has multiple screen readers that do a great job and have responsive and responsible developers that actually say more than "oh well such and such has to change the way they impliment this and that, and its their fault because they don't care, and "this is why we can't have nice things." referring to a hack to get some Gnome or Mate element working." Really, the Wild West isn't all its cracked up to be. Microsoft may not be the best company out there, but at least its employees are trying to make accessibility a big deal there, and the Linux community simply will not match that.

Devin Prater
My Blog
Follow me

2019-02-09 12:03:15

@67:
I don't see really any validity in your points, apart from the one about needing windows for some tasks, games, etc and even then, my answer to that is qemu.
As for mail clients, have you tried thunderbird on linux, or evolution?
As for Linux accessibility (or, moreover, desktop environment accessibility) Gnome is not the only desktop environment out there.
Cinnamon, mate, KDE, KDE plasma, XFCE, many out there.
If linux isn't for you, that's fine, however, don't blame your unwillingness to make it work through admittedly hackish means on the operating system.

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

2019-02-09 12:33:07

My unwillingness to make it work through admittedly hawkish means? What, using an operating system is "hackish"?

Also, have you tested Simimon, KDE, KDE Plasma, and XFCE, LXDE and Fluxbox and such with Orca? I was under the impression that a relatively popular distribution, Fedora, would be very much usable. But with, ironically, the settings center of Fedora being just about totally inaccessible, in an operating system where customization is king, I cannot give Linux much credit.

Now, the credit I can give is the F123 project, working with the Raspberry Pi 3B, combining mostly CLI programs with scripts to make them more user friendly, like the Fleacolar script for setting up Mutt.
That project may be the best, and actually organized, project we have dealing with Linux, and is a huge +1 for the "blindness distributions" argument.

Devin Prater
My Blog
Follow me

2019-02-09 14:34:27 (edited by queenslight 2019-02-09 14:43:45)

Well gang,

As of the 8th of February 2019 at 12:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, I have officially "Gone Linux!"

As of this writing, I am using Ubuntu 18.04.1 Long Term Support, with "Mate" being my desktop of choice, on this Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140.

Finding out that I have a "Solid State Drive" of 125GB (with 10GB for the OS itself,) plus the 128GB Micro SD card happily chilling alongside, 253gb of space is a comforting place!
NB. I do use the cloud a lot
too, thus space ain't a worry for me.

So now the big question folks...

Would   I ever go back to Windows in the future, or at least have it in a "virtual machine" alongside Ubuntu?

I will share about that among the Accessible Gaming On Linux And Chrome OS  topic, but in short, if  more Windows developers "were willing" to take the time to "port" their games to Linux in some form, thus making it have more of an adoption, there would be no need to! At leasst, not for what I personally do with my computer.

Music remixing, text adventure gaming, email, web surfing, etc.

2019-02-09 15:28:23

@69:
Yes, I have tested some of those, KDE (accessibility is a work-in-progress), KDE plasma (same as KDE) and XFCE (works fine)
@70:
Welcome to the dark side (not the apple one)
smile

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

2019-02-09 15:44:33

@71

Thanks!

Ah yes, the "dark side" of Apple. I  am gonna be "hopefully" picking up an "IPad Mini 5" when it comes out, though won't purchase it till later on in the year.

At least whenn it comes to SSH and FTP on Mobile, apps on Apple are highly  superior than in the Android camp! sad
At least when it comes to actually "using" them. But that topic, is for another day.

2019-02-09 15:58:44

Same distro as me Queens

Okay, speaking of email.....and browsers, I have an 11-12 year old system and Firefox tends to lag. So. What can I do to speed it up on Mate 18.04? I know it's down ot hardware because, well, I've got the same setup on my I7 machine....and that absolutely flies.

So for my older system....what would you guys recommend for browser/email that works better with my setup? I've tried Mutt. Command line is insanely fast.

Also, I've heard nothing but bad about Evolution BUT if that's improved, I'm willing to give it another go. I was debating jumping back to Solus in a live system to see if that improved Firefox's performance any. Too lazy though and I happen to like Ubuntu's stuff in their repos. That being said, if it is down to hardware, it won't really make a drastic performance improvement. now, will it?

Also, FF gripe with Orca, is it me or did the Addons manager suddenly quit working with Orca?

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-02-09 18:13:48

@72:
Have you tried the limbo PC emulator for android with a minimal debian qcow2 image with speakup loaded into the kernel?
That's what I use and it works.

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

2019-02-09 20:32:20

@74
Nope, I have not. Will go and investegate!