Awhich distro?

[Jan and Bertil Smark Nilsson]

Hello Karen,


On Fri, 21 Sep 2007, Karen Lewellen wrote:

> I realize there is more than one screen reader Linux wise, so am posting a 
> variation on my question to  this list.
>> When i began  reading on this list and the speakup one it was 2004, and I 
>> feel sure times have changed.
>>  As a result let me ask the following.
>>>  I do not wish if I can help it to compile allot of programs, or not at
>>>  first, preferring a distro with as many packages included as possible.  I
>>>  will be using a Dec talk express on a machine with a real serial port.  i
>>>  will also be using whatever Linux distro I choose as the second os, with
>>>  DOS being my main operating system.

If you don't want to compile the software yourself, you can use 
pre-compiled packages. There are plenty of them available, both for Fedora 
and for Debian. I happen to use Debian. If you want to make it less 
complicated, you can run your DOS software under Linux using a DOS 
emulator such as dosemu. I run my DOS version of Wordperfect that way and 
it works fine.

>>>  I understand that spider monkey?, is needful for some of the more java
>>>  script related browsers, but have no memory of it discussed here...not
>>>  saying it has not been.

If you use pre-compiled packages, dependencies, such as Spidermoneky, will 
be installed automatically. However, very few text mode browsers handle 
Javascript satisfactorily in my opinion.

>>>  I desire being able to listen to streaming audio, I suppose capture in a
>>>  simple way.

I use Mplayer in text mode. There are very few audio formats that it won't 
handle. Since I use braille output I don't have to worry about conflicts 
with a speech synthesiser, but I can't see a problem since you're are not 
using your soundcard for speech output.

>>>  Will welcome ftp too, although some of that can be done on shellworld,
>>>  perhaps  a way to send something to my shellworld ftp for sending to
>>>  someone else, or taking down some of my files from shellworld via ftp.

Both Fedora and Debian normally contain an FTP client in their basic 
configurations. If you want to run an FTP server, you'll have to say so 
during installation.

>>>  The machine I will use has already a 20gb hard drive, and I must leave
>>>  some space for my present c and d drives in my present Dos machine.
>>>  I realize I may want to get a larger drive before trying the Linux part 
>>> of
>>>  my life, but  may not have time before I move, so want to know what I am
>>>  in for.
>>>  I will keep many functions in Dos  like my word processing, etc.

Just now I'm using about 5GB but that includes quite a bit of data.

>>>  Now that I have been i really hope more clear, which do I need debian or
>>>  Fedora, or something else?

Since you seem to favour text mode, I'd go for either Fedora or Debian. 
As I don't use speech output, I don't have an informed opinion about 
screen readers.

Bertil