| Matias, I am not glorifying the Mac. I was pointing out the things that are different, or advantageous to us blind folk. In no way did I say that the Mac is for everyone, and indeed it isn’t. Also, I am no Fanboy of any platform, I use what I find to be the best for me. If that is Apple products at this time, then that’s what I’ll use. If Linux becomes the most accessible platform in my view, I will no hesitate to use it. So then, clear the red from your vision. To not feel attacked just because your preferred platform may not have all the nice features of a Mac, or for whatever reason you’ve decided to label me a Mac Fanboy and such. Really, if you do not get paid by an organization or company, whether it be the Free Software Foundation, Microsoft, Apple, or Google, do not fight for them, they don’t care about your livelihood. I talked about the Mac because I find it useful and good for my work. People who play audio games, or whose workplace is ensconced within Microsoft products, who who are in the healthcare business which seems to use Windows heavily, or who work on the JAWS screen reader, for example, would want Windows. But for just about anything else, a Mac is a good computer, unless you really don’t have the money, and have no good way to save up for it, or if free software that one can read, understand, and make better, then Linux will be the only choice.
Now, F123 looks very promising, so one may check that out, they seem to be doing very good work with Linux, and indeed, Linux accessibility, by making inexpensive computers which, I am sure, don’t use many resources, so 4 gigs of Ram is more than enough to do plenty with. Now, it is running Raspberry Pi, so you won’t get Voxin, but it comes with Mimic by default, and eSpeak, so speech quality isn’t so bad of an issue. I could see that really taking off, even for people in the states who are tired of Windows changing every few months, and bugs and screen reader upgrades (JAWS at least), but don’t want a Mac either, or who can’t afford one. But it runs Arch, so I’d keep discussion of it on the F123 list, but it is an option, if only because one could stick with GTK3 on it.
Devin we know you are a mac fanboy! But stop glorify mac Mac are not for everyone Mac are not perfect Skickades från E-post för Windows 10 I would definitely recommend the Mac. You’ll still be able to run free software, in an environment like Unix. Optionally, if you use the command line, check out https://github.com/tspivey/tdsrIt isn’t as powerful as Fenrir or Speak, but it gets the job done well. Also, the graphical utilities that come with the Mac, Safari, Mail, text-edit, are great also. There is spell checking, autocorrect, text replacement, and AppleScripting and Automation, all configurable, throughout the system, not just in your word processor, all accessible with VoiceOver. Of course, there are current bugs. In Safari, you hear “insertion point at (nil)” at the end of every paragraph unless you use the arrow keys, and not VoiceOver navigation, to read. These bugs are usually fixed within the year of a version release, and the releases are often much better than the public beta versions. I seriously hope that Linux stays accessible, because I’d hate to see free software let us down so majorly. But, volunteers are not held to a standard of accessibility, so I will not be shocked if all we have left in Linux is the command line.
Hi,
I have followed the discussion on the orca list lately and the conflicts around GTK 4 accessibility. I guess without getting into the drama of it all, I would just like to ask those who are knowledgeable if they think we will have Linux accessibility going into the future. I guess the issue seems to be that patches are being created for what upstream thinks is a broken system in some ways and it sounds like things like keyboard snooping could cause problems in the future. I honestly don't know enough to understand whether its broken from a design standpoint, however, it at least lets me use the computer.
I am not a skilled enough developer to understand all this yet but I rely on accessibility software for my job. I guess I would just like as honest as an answer as possible. If people think accessibility is going to be removed or key parts of the needed infrastructure, I see no other option than to buy a Mac now so that I can continue to operate the computer in the future. I did notice some comments that proposed removing ATK entirely which obviously would leave me dead in the water.. Ultimately, if the end is approaching, I would like to purchase a Mac as soon as possible since I will have to relearn the computer and a new screen reader (VoiceOver and would like as smooth a transition as possible.
I love using free software and hope to continue doing so, however, I ultimately have to do what is necessary to keep my job so I can support myself.
Thanks for any information and i hope those here can understand my concerns and honestly just not knowing what to do based on not having the technical knowledge to understand entirely what is happening in the different upstream packages.
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