Ubuntu instability

[Liam Proven]

On 30 August 2013 23:16, Grant Hardy <granthardy at outlook.com> wrote:
> A friend tried Vinux (an Orca-optomized version of Ubuntu, which I know
> isn’t supported here) and has received app crashes as well as a black screen
> while trying to install updates, necessitating a complete reinstall.

My closest friend is a blind professional techie and he and I have
spent a fair amount of time trying Ubuntu - and Vinux - on both
desktop and laptop hardware, with, I'm afraid to say, similar results
to yourself. We found Orca to be very unstable and that it failed to
read quite a large amount of the GNOME desktop. For instance, using
the Ubuntu system update tool, whereas it read the package names and
the progress, it didn't read out the descriptions or the status
messages.

I am reasonably experienced with using screenreaders and keyboard
controls - for a sighted person, anyway! Unfortunately, my friend
decided that the state of the art as of about 3 years ago was really
not ready for primetime and he abandoned his efforts.

An ex-girlfriend of his had similar problems. Her current partner is a
techie and set her up with a Samsung netbook with an install of Ubuntu
optimised for blind use - all visual effects disabled, fully updated,
drivers and plugins installed, speech configured and tested. She could
barely use it - loads of stuff didn't read and it was extremely
unstable.

In the end, he reluctantly caved in and switched her machine back to
Windows XP for her. Now, she is able to use it fully and is happy with
it.

I'm afraid that the state of the art of blind accessibility on Linux
is, in my personal experience, pretty poor.

Mac OS X is significantly better, but Microsoft Office does not read
well and for many people that is obviously a critical app. Unless or
until Microsoft ups its game on the Mac front, sad to say, you are
much better off with Windows.

Saying that, NVDA is advancing in leaps and bounds, so it's not just
Supernova versus JAWS any more, at least...

-- 
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