whole bunch of questions!

[Tim Chase]

On July  9, 2014, jeff greene wrote:
> Hi, I'm Jeff and I just joined the list.

Welcome aboard!

> I've never used linux before and have a bunch of questions.

You've come to the right place!

> 1 what's the best linux to get? I've heard some have built-in speach

Yes, some such as Vinux and Sonar Linux come with speech configured
"out of the box" while for some others, it's a little trickier.

> 2 Can you do all the same things in linux like in windows:
> moving/copying files, converting and playing videeos etc.

Those are two very different tasks.  Most certainly, there are lots
of ways to move/copy files, browse the internet, etc.  I tend to do
almost all of my file-management from the command-line, but there are
also file managers, some of which can be used at the command-line,
and some of which run in a graphical interface (and may or may not be
accessible, though the above distros that focus on accessibility will
certainly ensure that such functionality is accessible).

For converting and playing videos, there are a multitude of options,
though playing DVDs directly comes as a bit of a challenge since they
(the recording industry) intentionally make it hard to decrypt the
DVD data stream.

> 3 is there something like itunes for linux? And going
> with that, can i sync media between a linux machine and my iphone?
> 4 has anybody dealt with system76? Do they give good service etc?

I can't speak to #3 as I don't have an iPhone and I can't speak
first-hand regarding #4 as I've not purchased anything from System
76.  Based on what I've heard though, they have good machines and are
well-supported, but are a little more expensive than the El Cheapo
units I've found at my local Fry's on which I've installed Linux.

> 5 and I'll make this the last one. Are there any good podcasts
> demoing linux using speach?

Jonathan Nadeau (the guy behind Sonar GNU/Linux) did a bunch of good
series of introductory podcasts on using Orca (the big dog in GUI
screen-readers on Linux), but his site seems to be down and I don't
have a copy of the podcasts any more (I delete podcasts after
listening to them). He may even lurk here on this list and be able to
chime on; I've also put out the call to (one of) his twitter accounts.

Hope this helps.  This list is a great place to get questions
answered, so I hope we can help you get up and running.

-Tim