Linux Distributions for the Vision Impaired? 36
MoreDruid asks: "Not long ago, I was asked to do some research for a blind relative from a friend of mine. I tried searching the sites of Red Hat, Debian, and some other distro's, but only SuSe came up with really useful information. I did find Blinux, but I think it's not really mature yet. Do any other Slashdotters have any experience in this field? What is a good distro to start with? This research is geared towards a blind newbie user, so are there any decent resources for vision impaired people so that he can get going with Linux?" This topic was discussed, in a more general sense, some two years ago, and there have since been questions dealing with several
pieces
of the puzzle. However, is there anything else out there, aside from the developing Blinux, that puts it all together in one nice package?
To put it all together... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:4, Funny)
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:1)
- Chris
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:2)
The letter B looks like boobies! Hahaha!!!
Oh dear, I've offended all the people out there who can see and use the latin alphabet!
Any distro will do.. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm trying to set up another box for him using Debian and festival, but I haven't had much luck so far.
Re:Any distro will do.. (Score:3, Informative)
Too bad I haven't heard any BSD users yet, I'm also interested in the features BSD has to offer - besides being dead
Re:Any distro will do.. (Score:3, Informative)
Debian (Re:Any distro will do..) (Score:4, Informative)
Festival [ed.ac.uk] is a speech synthesis system. Under Debian [debian.org], just type "apt-get install festival festival-doc" (and festival-dev if you want to use it in your own programs). It has a nice built-in Scheme-based command interpreter.
I think Debian is a great choice for vision impaired users. Take a look at the Debian Accessibility Project [debian.org] and Accessibility HOWTO [linuxdoc.org]. There are even speakup enabled boot floppies [linux-speakup.org] for Woody (Debian 3.0, the current stable version).
Also, take a look at BrlSpeak [brlspeak.net], a Braille and Speech Mini-Distribution of GNU/Linux. It is based on Debian, developed by Osvaldo La Rosa, visually impaired Debian user. Let me quote the website:
BrlSpeak can be installed on a FAT partition. There's a 36MB .zip file or CD ISO9660 image for
download [brlspeak.net].
There's also Free(b)deb [freebsoft.org], a Free(b)soft [freebsoft.org]'s specialized linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. From the website:
However I'm not sure how to install it and where to download it from.
(I don't talk about Blinux [leb.net], as it has already been mentioned in the story.)
Good luck.
Gnome and Gnopernicus (Score:5, Informative)
A bit OT: Linux-based GpsDrive speaks to its Users (Score:2)
But I just thought I'd mention a tool for GPS-
based navigation... that might help people
who are blind get around, eg for GeoCaching &
other outdoor activities like it.
Although map-based (so turn that off or use a
cheaper computer with a broken screen...
this sleek, Austrian-developed GpsDrive lets
one get verbal reports of position, direction
of travel, and proximity to points of interest
and/or chosen destinations.
I think it may be
Links (Score:4, Informative)
It is marketed as a terminal to use with Windows; however, it is quite clear in mentioning that it runs Linux and the user is very able to (and encouraged) to use the Linux operating system which is installed on the device.
It comes in two flavors, braille and qwerty keyboards. The only downside is that it is terribly expensive.
Re:Links (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Links (Score:2)
Re:Links (Score:1)
Still, it's pretty cool. Especially if you ever see how large a Braille book is.
Re:Links (Score:2)
Re:Links (Score:2)
I found it looking for some linux-for-the-blind stuff because I have very poor eyesight and some days my eyes get quite strained and it becomes difficult to work. Being the paranoid guy that I am, I decided to look for solutions now in the event that I ever do become blind. Hopefully this isn't something that happens; however, I won
Re:Links (Score:2)
Re:Links (Score:2)
Re:Links (Score:1)
Re:Links (Score:1)
suse (Score:3, Informative)
You stated in you question that you found info and in fact, even the install program seems to be blind-friendly (it always look for braille display)
Re:suse (Score:2)
Re:suse (Score:2)
Now, for the blind-* stuff, I really don't know.
I just set up a text to speech with festival + mbrola, but that was "for the fun", not for real use. It was quite easy anyway.
SuSE has also pretty decent support when you buy it.
Knoppix (Score:1)
knoppix (Score:1)
Blinux (Score:2)
brlspeak (Score:1)
Speakup (Score:1)
Thx to all the people (Score:2)