Solaris 10 released, with accessibility built-in! Also FreeTTS 1.2 released. (fwd)

Tue Mar 1 06:16:57 UTC 2005

interesting.
While I will bee using an external hard drive plugged into a laptop or a desktop system, much of my work will bee done from a windows system through putty security to a cs fedora 1 server on the university network, and with the cygwin layer, which i am currently downloading.
The packages some are big.
Unless you want to develop don't get the source.
People say its 8gb, I think most of that is source.
At 06:39 a.m. 1/03/2005, you wrote:
>The accessibility through remote may be from windows, but since windows is 
>not serving it up except through special calls, we are actually using what 
>is provided on the host.
>
>Johnnie Apple Seed
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Kenny Hitt" <kenny at hittsjunk.net>
>To: "Linux for blind general discussion" <blinux-list at redhat.com>
>Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 12:21 PM
>Subject: Re: Solaris 10 released,with accessibility built-in! Also FreeTTS 
>1.2 released. (fwd)
>
>
>Hi.
>
>On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 11:55:15AM -0800, Peter Korn wrote:
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> I am from Sun, so I don't qualify as the "non-Sun" person you are seeking.
>> I also am sighted, so perhaps don't qualify as a sufficient authority by
>> that measure.  However, I may have some useful information, so I'll chime
>> in...
>>
>>
>> The priority for our first release, as informed by the letter of the rules
>> in Section 508, was a usable, accessible desktop for end-users.  This
>> specifically meant that for the first release, accessible installation was
>> a "nice to have", not a "must have".  Solaris, unlike Linux, doesn't have 
>> a
>> notion of virtual text consoles in which you can run Speakup or BrlTTY.
>> You can run BrlTTY on Solaris (we have been shipping them on the Solaris
>> Companion CD for a little while now), but it doesn't run at as low a level
>> in Solaris as they do in Linux.  See
>> http://blogs.sun.com/roller/search/richb?q=Companion&c= for a blog entry
>> from Rich Burridge on the contents of the Solaris Companion CD.
>>
>> GUI accessibility in Solaris 10 is very likely better than what most folks
>> in the community have experienced.  This isn't because we've "held stuff
>> back", or "added secret sauce".  Rather it is becaus there are a *lot* of
>> components to put together to make this all work, and we've been building
>> and testing the particular collection of versions for a while now in both
>> Solaris and our upcoming Java Desktop System release 3 for Linux.  Many of
>> the problems folks have encountered are due in part to older, or
>> mis-matched versions of things. Web browsing in particular is significant
>>  better using the Sun Mozilla branch (we've gotten about half of our
>> accessibility patches put back to Mozilla trunk, with more going in every
>> week; but the most accessible Mozilla on UNIX remains our branch, which is
>> what we ship in Solaris 10).
>>
>
>Are you still forced to read a web page line by line?  If so, anyone
>using speech for output  will take much longer than they would with
>lynx in a text console.  Even on pages that work well with Mozilla, I
>find it much faster to read the page with lynx.
>
>> So Solaris 10 is probably "beyond what is available in Linux" from the
>> point of view of what most people have put together in Linux.  But 
>> strictly
>> speaking, *everything* we've done in Solaris 10 is "available" in Linux -
>> you just have to do a bunch of work to put it together (and of course, 
>> that
>> work is part of the value of going to a commercial, supported, UNIX distro
>> and why many folks will pay Sun $50 for the retail edition of the Sun Java
>> Desktop System).
>>
>> But... I wouldn't say that the shipping Solaris 10 is dramatically beyond
>> what many have experienced on their own with Linux.  Perhaps others will
>> disagree - I've spent very little time trying to roll my own stuff on top
>> of Debian or Fedora or what-have-you.  Even so, this is a *first* release.
>> Compared to outSPOKEN 1.0, or JAWS 1.0, I think this is far superior, and
>> far more functional.  And I personally know a number of folks who were
>> pretty successful with outSPOKEN 1.0 (and especially outSPOKEN 1.1).  And
>> certainly compared to the built-in GUI access options on Windows, there is
>> no question as to how much more functional Solaris 10 is.  But we 
>> certainly
>> have a good distance to go before we can rival JAWS 5.x, or ZoomText 8.x,
>> or...  And a user who is very comfortable and productive in the Linux
>> console will probably find they prefer that environment - at least for
>>  many/most things.  One blind user data-point to counter that: someone on
>> one of the GNOME accessibility mailing lists said he has moved over to
>> Gnopernicus and Mozilla exclusively for web browsing now, and no longer
>> uses lynx.  As they say, your mileage may vary...
>>
>I agree Gnome accessibility is better than what I had in Windows 3.11
>and JFW 2.0 back in 1996.  I have switch to using Gnome for all my multi
>media playback.  Totem rocks!
>
>I find some types of file management are easier in nautilus than
>they would be using wild cards in a terminal.  I've also noticed I
>usually have few problems with accessibility when I try a new gtk 2 app.
>I have my system configured to boot to a gdm login and I always keep a
>Gnome session running in addition to text consoles.
>However, I still don't think it is possible for a blind person using
>speech output to be productive using only Gnome and Gnopernicus.
>I know that will eventually change, but it isn't there yet.
>
>You should be aware the person whoclames to be using Gnopernicus
>and Mozilla instead of Lynx spends very little time running Linux.
>Based on his mail headers and earlier posts from him, he spends
>most of his time in MS Windows.  I believe he uses Windows for his job,
>so his Linux experience  is only for short times on limited occasions.
>
>For accessibility purposes, I don't believe controlling a Linux box from
>a Windows counts as Linux experience.  True you know Unix commands, but
>the accessibility is still from Windows.
>
>
>          Kenny
>
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