RE: FW: Vinux 3.0 Released!

[Anthony Sales <tony sales rncb ac uk>]

Hi Bryen,

This was a point of contention when a first started the Vinux project. The answer is that I personally didn't feel that the mainstream distros where accessible or easy enough to use for beginners coming to Linux for the first time. They had to know the keybindings and/or how to install or setup the accessibility software before they could even start experimenting with it and consequently many blind computer users has a very bad first impression of Linux and it had a reputation for being inaccessible amongst Windows users. I would agree that if you knew what you are doing you can indeed do everything we do in Vinux on Ubuntu, but the reality is that the majority of users don't know how to do this. So I unilaterally decided that I would make a distro that was preconfigured for blind and partially sighted users - one that would talk and magnify out of the box at first boot - which at least got most users over the first barrier. The second barrier was specific applications not being accessible, e.g. the package management tools etc, unless started from the command line. So as the project grew we developed more and more workarounds and tweaks that made Vinux a lot easier to use as a blind user - even a power user could save a lot of time and energy by starting off with speech-dispatcher, Orca and Speakup pre-configured etc then just add their own preferred customisations. In an ideal universe we wouldn't need Vinux, but I felt for practical rather than theoretical reasons it was needed. I received quite a hostile reaction in the beginning but with encouragement from a few individuals I continued and we have now got an emerging development team and a growing number of users who just find Vinux easy to use. Of course myself and the other developers would much rather sit on our fat butts and eat kebabs than hack Ubuntu, so some of our improvements and adaptations are being fed back onto Ubuntu, which should improve the speed of accessibility development. It is unlikely however that Ubuntu or any other mainstream distribution would ever adopt all of the changes we make either for cosmetic or security reasons etc, but if Ubuntu or any other distro gets close I am sure the naturally lazy tendancies we have would overwhelm us and we would stop making it. Ironically one of the popular uses for Vinux is to fix a broken Windows system!  I hope this explains where we are coming from we don't want to have separate versions for the VI but we are just too impatient to wait for the major distros to catch up, although I have to say that recent versions of Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE have been getting better and better on the accessibility front.

Tony Sales (aka drbongo)


-----Original Message-----
From: gnome-accessibility-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:gnome-accessibility-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Bryen M. Yunashko
Sent: 07 June 2010 17:44
To: gnome-accessibility-list gnome org
Subject: Re: FW: Vinux 3.0 Released!

On Tue, 2010-06-01 at 12:03 +0100, Anthony Sales wrote:
> On behalf of the whole Vinux community I am happy to announce the 3rd release of Vinux - Linux for the Visually Impaired, based on Ubuntu 10.04 - Lucid Lynx. This version of Vinux provides three screen-readers, two full-screen magnifiers, dynamic font-size/colour-theme changing as well as support for USB Braille displays. Vinux is now available both as an installable live CD and as a .deb package which will automatically convert an existing installation of Ubuntu Lucid into an accessible Vinux system! In addition, we now have our own Vinux package repository (from which you can install our customised packages with apt-get/synaptic) and a dedicated Vinux IRC channel. In the very near future we will also be launching a Vinux Wiki and releasing special DVD, USB and Virtual Editions of Vinux 3.0! To download Vinux 3.0 or to get more information on the project please visit the Vinux Project Homepage at http://vinux.org.uk or use these direct links:
> 
> Download: http://sina.fi.ncsu.edu/Vinux-3.0.iso (685MB, MD5: 7cc8ac0ed5eaef45dbf215279da3660f)
> Mirrors: http://vinux.org.uk/downloads.html
> 
> drbongo
> _____________

First of all, congratulations to you and the Vinux community for
continuing your great work.

What remains a question for me, not just with Vinux but also with other
accessibilty-focused spinoffs, is the very existence thereof.

Philosophically, I believe very strongly in the statement of "A11y"
which means that any person can use any computer regardless of physical
or mental limitations.  That concept means that we should not have to
search for accessibility-oriented spinoffs.  

So, in that vein, what does Vinux offer that cannot be offered directly
in say Ubuntu?  What are the lessons that major distros can learn from
Vinux and others on how to improve their own accessibility
infrastructure?  What are the limitations encountered by those of us who
rely on accessibility tools that force us to look elsewhere for
accessibility-oriented spinoffs?

My questions aren't meant to criticize Vinux.  Obviously, if Vinux
exists, it is there because there's a need for it.  But how can we close
the gap between mainstream and specially oriented distros?

Sincerely,
Bryen M Yunashko
GNOME-A11y Outreach

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