Blind vs. mainstream distros

[Linux for blind general discussion]

Hello, this is Samuel,

Chris, on lun. 24 avril 2017 07:48:29 -0700, wrote:
> Frankly, my preference is not to have to type random incantations at a
> boot prompt.  I call this "type and pray".  Power up the box, try to
> guess when it boots,

You don't need to guess thanks to the boot menu beep.

Chris continued:
> and then blindly mash some keys.

Jefferey, on lun. 24 avril 2017 15:07:29 +0000, added:
> On a somewhat related note, it annoys me that Debian CD1's boot menu
> just beeps and you have to know the right combination of buttons to
> press to start the talking version of the installer

I agree that this blind typing is less than ideal.  But as mentioned by
a few people here, it's not so much a big deal, and it's a compromise
that could be found.

Jefferey, on lun. 24 avril 2017 15:07:29 +0000, added:
> Would it be that inconvenient to those who don't need speech to make
> the disc's boot menu fully voiced

As mentioned by somebody else, making the boot menu fully voiced is a
very involved thing. Also, the CD immediately talking by default would
be annyoing indeed. The beep itself has received quite some discussion,
we eventually managed to keep it, but that didn't go without discussion.

Jefferey continued:
> or to make the talking installer the first menu entry so the most you
> have to remember is press enter at the beep?

Yes, it would be really inconvenient: that'd mean that >95% users would
have to not chose the default boot entry.

Chris wrote:
> I'd rather have the boot media try to start talking as early as it
> can, without requiring human intervention from someone who is only
> able to make wild guesses about the current state of the system.

Sure, thus the beep.  Also, having the support right into the official
images doesn't prevent from shipping unofficial images whose difference
is on the default default choice.  The benefit is that all images are
accessible, and supported exactly the same way, the only difference
being the default choice.

Samuel