Hello,
I'm the coordinator for the Ubuntu Accessibility Team. I would first
just like to say hello and establish a connection between our two teams
which have very similar aims.
I just took oralux 0.7 for a test spin and it seemed to work well with
my hardware out of the box. I like the way it asks you questions during
the boot process. Is that using speakup?
In Ubuntu we are just now starting to get some reasonable assistive
technology support on our Live CD. If you want to give it a try you can
download a copy here: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/
This is our development version, which now has built-in support for
gnopernicus with gnome-mag and festival. In addition it supports
high-contrast themes, stickykeys/mousekeys and the GOK on-screen keyboard.
Booting instructions for using the assistive technology features can be
found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/doc/StartGuide (note:
this is the bog-standard Ubuntu distribution CD so it will only start up
in accessible modes by pressing some keys at boot time).
I read with interest a comment about Oralux 2.0 earlier on this list and
its aim to be useable by non-technical users. That is of course the main
aim of the Ubuntu project as well, and I would say that we are gradually
getting there.
In a sense we are approaching it from the opposite end compared with
what you are doing. While you are currently focusing on including the
best possible assistive technologies, we are working on a polished
end-user GUI distro with a basic (but growing) level of accessibility
support. As a general-purpose distro, it needs to be suitable for a wide
range of users out of the box. We therefore spend a great deal of effort
making sure that the accessibility features do not affect the general
simplicity and usability of the system.
So I just wanted to open up some communications, and ask us each to
consider some aspects of this we might be able to collaborate on in the
future. We are also currently working closely with the Orca team,
providing testing and feedback, and will hopefully start work on a new
XGL-based magnifier soon.
Best wishes,
Henrik
Ubuntu Accessibility Team coordinator
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