Want to try a GUI. Which one is best?

Sun Mar 1 22:51:02 UTC 2020

Hello,

Didier Spaier, Slint maintainer here.

This looks rather convoluted to me.

A lot simpler:
1. Install Slint (speech and braille are enabled during installation).
Accept the default settings when asked (start in console mode, choose
Mate as default graphical environment).
2. Start Slint.
You will be in a console, with speech and Braille active.
3. Type 'startx' when you want.
You will be in Mate with the Orca screen reader active.

At time of writing Slint ships Mate 1.22, hopefully will be upgraded to
1.24 next week.

Slint includes Compiz, with all accessibilty features set up.

To know more, read:
http://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/README.installation
And the docs in:
http://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/doc/
Beginning with:
http://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/doc/Accessibility/Accessibility

Questions? Register to the Slint mailing lists sending an email to:
ecartis at freelists.org
from the email address you will use to send messages to the list, with
just in the Subject line:
join slint

Best regards,
Didier

Le 01/03/2020 à 21:30, Linux for blind general discussion a écrit :
> Ouch. All that just seems like a lot of roundabout to have to do. I install a full MATE desktop along with Orca, set org.gnome.desktop.a11y.applications screen-reader-enabled and org.mate.interface accessibility true if necessary  and use the lxdm display manager to start it. I then only have to change three lines to get a fully accessible desktop running at boot time. First, I uncomment the line that begins with autologin and set it true. Then I change the automatically logged in user from dgod to my username and uncomment that line. Then the only other thing I need to do is to uncomment the line that begins with session and change it from /usr/bin/startlxde to /usr/bin/mate-session. This approach of course doesn't work all that well on multi-user systems, but in most cases it's all you need. In this way, you always start with a desktop running, and if you need to do anything in a terminal, you can just open mate-terminal. I find myself using the terminal rather infrequently these d
>  ays for anything other than building source code, complex file management that still works better from a shell and package management, although there are package management applications available for most distros that don't require a terminal and work rather well, especially for finding new software. Most applications work so well with Orca that I have found desktop applications generally easier to use than chatty terminal output and page-by-page reading and the like.
>
> On March 1, 2020 1:07:30 PM EST, Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com> wrote:
>> The most useful approach for accessibility users unless they use a
>> mouse
>> is to install startx and ratpoison and then have ratpoison run which
>> brings up startx and startx then brings up mate.  The ratpoison is a
>> package which when you get it working makes startx accessible more so
>> than it already is.
>>
>> On Sun, 1 Mar 2020, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
>>
>>> Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2020 13:02:51
>>> From: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
>>> To: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
>>> Subject: Re: Want to try a GUI. Which one is best?
>>>
>>> This is really something debian does not provide.  Archlinux that can
>> be
>>> done with installing a few of the correct packages and I don't
>> remember
>>> the list now didn't save it in braille.  Now, with slint you can do
>> all
>>> of that and that's one of the installation choices.  Slint doesn't
>> have
>>> gnome either but does have mate.
>>> https://slint.fr/ is the first url and search the page for
>> accessibility
>>> and read what you find.
>>>
>>> On Sun, 1 Mar 2020, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
>>>
>>>> Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2020 12:30:57
>>>> From: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
>>>> To: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: Want to try a GUI. Which one is best?
>>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for all your suggestions. I have Debian Buster, command-line
>> only. I may just wait until the next Debian testing is available and
>> see if they include Mate.
>>>> I
>>>> will be using brltty, and no speech.
>>>>
>>>> This leaves one concern in my original message for discussion. I
>> want Debian to boot into the command-line, but I want to have a command
>> or script for starting
>>>> the GUI when I need it.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> John J. Boyer <john.boyer at abilitiessoft.org>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Mar 01, 2020 at 01:54:07PM +0000, Linux for blind general
>> discussion wrote:
>>>>> Best I can tell, Mate 1.24 is currently available in both Debian
>>>>> Testing(aka Bull's Eye which will eventually become Debian 11)
>> and
>>>>> Debian Unstable(aka Sid).
>>>>>
>>>>> It's unlikely something as big as a new version of Mate will make
>> it
>>>>> into Debian 9 aka Stretch or oldstable or Debian 10 aka Buster or
>>>>> Stable as Debian priortizes stability over cutting edge, though
>> it
>>>>> might make it into backports(more likely for Buster than for
>> Stretch,
>>>>> but I confess to not knowing how long Debian supports Oldstable
>> when a
>>>>> new Stable is released).
>>>>>
>>>>> That said, while Orca, the primary, and possibly only, graphical
>>>>> screen reader for Linux, is officially part of Gnome and
>> persumably
>>>>> optimized for that environment, and probably works so well with
>> Mate
>>>>> due to Mate's origins as a Gnome fork(as I understand it, Gnome 3
>>>>> brought many controversial changes to look and feel and Mate
>> startedas
>>>>> a way to keep the Gnome 2.x look and feel in an updated
>> environment),
>>>>> Orca should, in theory, be able to work with any GTK-based
>> Desktop
>>>>> Environment or Window Manager, though anything QT-based(KDE chief
>>>>> among them) is currently a bit hit or miss.
>>>>>
>>>>> Gnome or Mate might be the best options for a beginner as they're
>> the
>>>>> most well documented DEs for using them with Orca, but Knoppix
>> using a
>>>>> combination of LXDE and Orca when launching a full Desktop seems
>> to
>>>>> work well, and I've heard people have had success with the
>> ratpoison
>>>>> window Manager.