Vision impaired software on FreeBSD?

[Mr. Jim Vaglia]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs at flat.berklix.net>
To: "Mr. Jim Vaglia" <jimjv at verizon.net>
Cc: <freebsd-advocacy at freebsd.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 7:56 AM
Subject: Re: Vision impaired software on FreeBSD?


> "Mr. Jim Vaglia" wrote:
>> What assistive technology if any will run on FreeBSD? Is this
>> what Mac and Voice Over is based on? Many blind people are mostlikely
>> not interested in paying high cost of Windows Vista. Thanks for
>> spreading the word among the public if all people with physical
>> disabilities and impairments are able to use FreeBSD? Totally, blind
>> from birth, totally in the *dark* on this OS. LOL
>
> One problem: (last I knew), FreeBSD only has a graphical installer,
> not Ascii text mode. So you might need somoene else to install it
> for you.
>
> (That's of course doing a standard install off the cdrom or floppy
> & net; if you happen to be a Unix expert there are ways of installing
> using command line only, eg
>   installing a spare disk on a PC, installing software, moving
>   disk to new PC: all of that could be done in single line mode
>   commands, possibly with one of those Ascii to braille
>   40 char.  adapters a friend told me of 2 decades back, so might
>   be possible but tricky.
>
> Last I heard NetBSD still offers a line mode installer 
> http://www.netbsd.org
> NetBSD has less ported packages than FreeBSD but otherwise is
> similar.  (well, more similar than eg Linux or Microsoft :-)
>
> Apart from what Salvatore Albanese just mentioned, (hope you got it, not 
> cc'd)
>
> ... It's also possible freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org might have
> heard of other hardware.  Then again, as NetBSD is more hardware
> oriented, those people may have heard of more controllable devices.
>
> PS for anyone wondering, No, I'm no troll for NetBSD, nearly all
> my many machines are FreeBSD, but NetBSD does have some advantages
> in some places.
>
> -- 
> Julian Stacey.  BSD Unix C Net Consultancy, Munich/Muenchen 
> http://berklix.com
> Mail Ascii, not HTML. Ihr Rauch = mein allergischer Kopfschmerz.
> http://berklix.org/free-software

Didn't receive his responce as not subscribed to the list. While the command 
line information, was informative, need info on what graphics assistive 
technology, may run in the free BSDenvironment, however at least developers 
are aware of the issue?