Hello glen.

I certainly don’t require JAWS. I only wrote to say that my experience of over ten years ago was quite unsatisfactorya nd disappointing. That’s not to say that back then blind people didn’t’ successfully use Linux – they did and I talked to some of them. But there was just some weird quirk going on with my system and ORCA would not stay up for more than a few minutes at a time, no matter what I did. It also took the Linux kernel hoursa nd hours to install on it which I know was not normal – the person who was helping me get set up with Linux, a sighted user, told me that this was not at all normal given the apparent specs of the machine.

Good to know about Ubuntumate. I don’t know how that differes from regular Ubuntu, which is I think what I installed back in 2009. Why do you think it’s the best for a blind user?

What desktop environment are people using now anyway? I heard that Gnome had fallen out of favour, but KTE did not work with ORCA at all back then.

I’d love to get into using Linux. I tried around 2009 using Ubuntu with Gnome, and Orca, the screen-reader, was crashing all the time. There was a weird hardware problem with the system, I think, which I never understood – so I’m hoping it was just a one-off and that an experience today might be better. Back then, I decided to just do a lot more stuff in console/command line – fine, except I was spending so much time trying to find and read the appropriate man pages that I just gave the computer to my sighted partner instead, who was happily using Linux for a year or so, and I went back to Windows exclusively.

On Sat, Oct 8, 2022 at 12:19 PM, Glenn / Lenny wrote:

Really, if people are just doing eMail, some audio and some web pages, it would be more like using windows 7 than using windows 10 is.

You still have the pull-down menus, no ribbons in Linux, and the desktop is like in windows.

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I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with this, vehemently.

The similarities between the Linux UI and Window UI exist, but they're superficial and the differences in the ecosystems is immense.  Way more than the adjustment needed to go from Windows 7 to Windows 10 is required to become proficient with the Linux UI and the Linux OS as a whole.

Changing operating systems, as opposed to upgrading in the same stream, is not something to be undertaken lightly.

Some people have wanted to complain about the Ribbons interface rather than learn it, and it's here to stay under most OSes besides Linux.  And learning a new Office Suite is no minor undertaking, either.

Moving from Windows 7 to 10 or 11 is a piece of cake compared to switching to an entirely new ecosystem.  Most of what you ever knew about Windows, going all the way back to Windows 3.1, is still entirely applicable and transferable.
 
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Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H2, Build 19044  

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

    ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore