Vinux Conference a Success!

I am pleased to say that the online meeting to discuss the future development of Vinux took place last night and we had about thirty participants on and off, although some people had a few teething problems using IRC for the first time. It was decided that Vinux would continue to be based on Ubuntu for the time being, but that we would look into the possibility of building upon Debian Mint and/or Squeeze in the meantime, just in case Ubuntu 11.04 and/or the new Unity desktop and the Wayland Display Server cause any unexpected accessibility issues. Ten members of the Vinux Support/Development List were also duly elected as Team Coordinators: BuildScripts - Tony Sales, Software Development - Don Marang, Testing - Nimer Jaber, Website - Mobeen Iqbal, Publicity - Storm Dragon, Fundraising - Arianna Sepulveda, Documentation is shared by Nimer Jaber, Krishnakant and Merrill Woolnough, and we accepted offers for Translated Versions of Vinux from Kris (Dutch), Ferdinand/Joey (German) , Cleverson/Rui (Portuguese) and Burt (Spanish).

Vinux IRC Meeting Agenda:

Event: Vinux Development Meeting
Date: Saturday 22nd January
Time 21:00 GMT
Location: irc.blufudge.net #vinux

Agenda

1. Development Roles

As always the main problem faced by the Vinux Project is the relatively small number of people who are willing and able to contribute in some way. I would like to recruit more people to help with development and try to formalise the different roles. As I see it there are six distinct roles, which could assigned to an individual or shared between a small team, and of course there is nothing to stop one person performing more than one role if they wish. The six roles are:

A. Build Script Team - Writing and testing the build scripts then producing the final releases of Vinux.

B. Software Development Team - Writing and testing new packages then adding them to the Vinux repository.

C. Testing Team - Testing individually assigned packages in the alpha,beta and release candidates and passing the feedback to the build script and/or software development team.

D. Translations Team - Creating Vinux isos in new languages once the build script is finalised and uploading them to the website and/or mirrors.

E. Website/Hosting Team - Maintaining the website, wiki, mirrors, mailing lists and publicity etc.

F. Documentation Team - Writing how-to articles for the Quickstart Guide and the Vinux Manual.

Initially we just need people to volunteer to be part of a team, and depending upon the number of responses we get, I would then like to appoint a member of each team as the coordinator of that team.

2. Which distribution should we base Vinux on?

This is another issue which crops up every year - should we stick with Ubuntu, or switch to another distro. Ubuntu offers many advantages such as hardware compatibility, but it has a very fast release cycle and is planning to make some major changes in its next release (Gnome>Unity and Xorg>Wayland) and we have no idea how this will effect accessibility. There are other distributions we could base Vinux on including: Debian, Linux Mint and PCLInuxOS - however the one that holds the most promise at the moment is Debian Mint. This offers the hardware detection of Ubuntu, with a rolling release based on Debian Squeeze, meaning once installed there shouldn't ever be a need to reinstall. So the question is: do we stick with Ubuntu, Switch to Debian Mint or develop both in parallel initially to see what happens. The answer to this will depend largely on whether we have enough people to support two versions or not, and of course whether people think this is a good idea or not.

3. Any Other Business

Captain's Log: Stardate 21122010

We are at the end of another long year for the Vinux Project and we have managed to release Vinux 3.1 in all of its various forms before the new year. So now it is time to hang our developer's gloves up and have a good rest! So thanks to everyone who contributed to this release in whatever way they could, Vinux wouldn't be possible without a friendly, helpful community of people who all have the same goal: open-source accessibility for everyone. But as always, I am thinking about the future and trying to anticipate in which direction the project should go. So here are a few things for everyone to mull over during the holidays, which will roughly form the agenda for the online meeting I would like to hold in the new year, probably on our IRC channel.

Firstly, while the community has slowly grown over the last year, we are still painfully short of core developers who have the time and skill to keep the project going. Granted we now have lots of people who help out in a variety of peripheral ways such as; hosting vinux iso images, writing new packages, testing alpha and beta releases, answering queries on the support list etc. I am not going to name any names (in case I leave someone out) but you know who you are. However at the moment there are really only three core developers: Bill Cox, Mobeen Iqbal and myself who actually produce Vinux releases. Bill was the main driving force behind the Vinux 3.0 release, but due to health problems this year he has not been able to take a lead role in the latest release (although he still provided invaluable help and advice). Mobeen produces the VMWare Virtual Edition of Vinux and a special version of the USB Edition which can be installed to a pendrive from Windows, which are very popular with newbies who are afraid of messing up their Windows installations (with good reason). This means that I produce the final release of Vinux, create all of the different versions, upload them to the servers, update the website and then make announcements on the relevant mailing lists and forums etc. This may not sound like a lot, but given that I have a full-time teaching job and a family to look after, I can honestly say that I spend nearly all of my evenings, weekends and holidays working on Vinux to the exclusion of all other activities. Not that I am complaining or trying to be a martyr, I took on the responsibility when I started the project, but sometimes the pressure of having to work on Vinux instead of relaxing becomes overwhelming. So as always, here is my annual appeal for help!

There are lots of different ways in which people can help with the development of Vinux, irrespective of their skills and knowledge. I will now identify some roles that each and everyone of you can play in the Vinux project:

Testing - This basically means testing out alpha and beta versions of Vinux before the official release is made. Indeed many of you already provide feedback, but up to now it has been in a very haphazard way. We need to formalise the testing process with specific individuals identified to test specific packages and provide detailed feedback - not just X doesn't work. We will also need someone to coordinate the testing and feedback process, so we could do with a 'Testing Taj' to step foward...

Documentation - This is something that users of any level can do, you just have to document in detail how to use a particular package with Orca or Speakup etc. Again in the past this has also been fairly haphazard, but now that there is a specific repository for the Vinux Documentation Project this should become more coordinated, with individual users being asked to provide a guide to specific packages etc. Again we need someone to take responsibility for coordinating this, a 'Document Dictator' if you like...

Publicity - This means what it says on the can - making sure people find out about Vinux through mailing lists, forums, blogs and other websites etc, but without annoying everyone or being accused of spamming etc. The other important element to this role(s) is the need for realism. We can't make out that Vinux is the solution to everyone's computer needs - it offers advantages and disadvantages compared to other operating systems and we mustn't overblow our own trumpet as this will raise expectations, leading to inevitable disappointment for some users. Vinux isn't or probably won't ever be right for all VI computer users. So what we need is an 'Realist Reporter' to take on this role...

Mirrors - Providing mirrors on which to make Vinux available is of vital importance. Having mirrors around the world allows people to get Vinux from their nearest server, or at least provides options if one or other of the servers is down. We actually have a reasonable number of mirrors at the moment, but if you can host even one iso on server with reasonable bandwidth speeds (unlike mine) then drop us a line - we need more 'Mirror Mages'...

Website Management - This role(s) would require more technical competence than the previous two roles, as it would involve managing a website(s) and/or mailing lists etc making sure that all of the information is up to date and the iso images are available from the relevant mirrors. I would be happy to hand over this side of my responsibilities to other trusted members of the community as it would free me up to spend more time on the development side. So we need a 'Website Wizard' to step forward as well...

Package Development - There are already several people producing packages for Vinux and the wider Linux community, but this is an area were people can work relatively independently and produce packages which they think will be useful for themselves and others alike. The only communal element is uploading it to Launchpad, building the binaries and then providing technical support on the mailing list for users if required. If you have an idea for the next accessible application which will take the world by storm, then get coding. We need more 'Package Peasants'...

Distribution Development - This role probably involves the most responsibility and stress, but technically speaking it isn't as hard as you might first think. It requires a large amount of patience, determination, effort and time, but not that much intelligence - just a spattering of Bash scripting and a basic understanding of Ubuntu, the Gnome Desktop and the Accessibility software. So if you think you are a match for my determination and stupidity, then consider getting involved in this side of things. This is a role that can easily be split between different people, either taking turns to produce releases, or producing different versions of the same release. We need some 'Distribution Demons' as soon as possible...

Each if these roles could be taken on by a single individual or by a team of people, although each team would need a coordinator of some kind. So if you fancy playing a more active part in the development of Vinux please get in touch, privately if you prefer to discuss any concerns or anxieties you might have...

Now it's time to discuss the big issues which we have to face in the coming year:

The first issue is the proposed move from the Gnome Desktop to Unity in Ubuntu 11.04. This may or may not cause problems for screen-reader users. Luke Yelavich has been seconded onto the unity development team to make it accessible, which is a positive sign. But I feel Luke is always having to play catch up with decisions taken by Canonical in which accessibility isn't the highest priority. I suspect the motive behind switching to Unity is to give Ubuntu its own unique interface which will work well on netbooks and touchpads etc. So depending on how things develop we may have to adopt Unity and any limitations this has, or stay with the Gnome Desktop until Unity is usable.

Related to this is the question of whether we should stick with Ubuntu as the base for Vinux, switch to a different distro, or diversify and produce more than one version. Given the current lack of core developers, the third option seems unrealistic (unless some maverick decides to start producing their own version of Vinux) so that leaves us with the perennial 'Ubuntu or not' question. Ubuntu offers many advantages in terms of ease of use, hardware support and the size of the user community. On the other hand it has a very fast release cycle and I suspect it may have commercial motives in the long run and this may limit our freedom to release Vinux at some point in the future. There are other distros that offer similar features to Ubuntu e.g. Debian, Mint, Fedora etc, but they are also release based, meaning that the only safe way to upgrade is to install the latest version. On the other hand there are rolling release versions of Linux such as Arch, Aptosid and PCLinuxOS which can be kept permanently up to date without re-installation, but they are not easy to make accessible or remaster. The only viable option I could envisage using at the moment would be Mint Debian, which follows a rolling release based on Debian Testing, but also offers most of the features provided by Ubuntu, in addition to multimedia codecs etc.

Finally there is the issue of what features and packages we should and shouldn't include in Vinux. To some extent this is determined by the room on the iso image, but we could for example produce of lots of simple accessible tools using Zenity and Bash scripts (like Speedy-OCR) or plugins to existing applications (like Markup-Binder) that would make users live much easier - or should we encourage people to learn how to use the standard tools provided by Ubuntu or in the repositories?

Anyway this is just food for thought. Feel free to post your ideas and suggestions to the mailing list, we will have an online meeting sometime in the new year - probably towards the end of January when my student's examinations are all over!

Better Late Than Never!

I am pleased to announce that Vinux 3.1 (Based on Ubuntu 10.10) is finally ready for download from the Vinux mirrors! It is currently available as a CD or DVD in both 32 and 64bit versions (USB and Virtual versions will follow shortly). It has been a long time coming, but hopefully it will be worth the wait. On top of all the usual accessibility software, new features include a Quick Start Guide for beginners (Ctrl+Alt+Q), Autokey-GTK which can insert text automatically as you type based on pre-defined abbreviations, the Parcellite Clipboard Manager which allows you paste text from the clipboard history, X-Tile which allows you to tile windows automatically, Gnome Media Player as an accessible front-end to VLC, Conkeror a keyboard controlled Web Browser, Pidgin the Internet Messenger (with all the plugins) and Gufw a simple but effective Firewall Manager.

Other additions include: Alarm Clock, a simple GUI for setting timed notifications, GtkHash an md5sum calculator, SearchMonkey an advanced search tool, Terminator which allows you to open multiple tiled terminals in one window, Tux Commander a dual-paned file manager with keyboard shortcuts, World Clock which allows you to monitor times in different locations around the world, Gcolor2 a simple GUI for selecting colours from anywhere on the screen, the Specimen Font Previewer, Dlume a simple address book manager, the ToDo List package, mhWaveEdit a simple sound recorder/editor GUI, Sound Juicer an audio CD ripper, FSlint a file system cleaner, Gtk-ChTheme a GTK theme previewer/changer, Scheduled Tasks a simple GUI front-end for cron and HardInfo a system profiler and system benchmarker.

There are also three new packages unique to Vinux available from the Vinux repository and/or the EasyInstall-Office and OCR scripts. These are: Markup-Binder written by Isaac Porat, which makes the creation of complex navigable documents a simple process (the new QuickStart Guide was created using this), another application is Speedy-OCR written by Don Marang, which is a simple GUI front end which allows you to scan in documents and convert then to text and/or speech. And last but not least is Monitor-Toggle written by Luke Yelavich which allows you to turn off your monitor to save battery power and maintain your privacy.

There are also some changes under the hood. We unfortunately had to remove YASR from this release as it was no longer working under Maverick, and in order to make room on the CD we also had to remove Samba (Windows File-sharing) and the Festival Speech Synthesiser, although these can easily be reinstalled after installation. The dynamic font-size/colour-theme changing scripts have been revamped so that the desktop background and desktop icons change colour as well, and we have gone with a dark theme by default, with the window controls in the traditional top-right corner position. In addition there are now both desktop icons and menu launchers to take users straight to the Vinux website and the support/development groups.

Now for the bad news. I have already found a small bug in the latest release - however it is unlikely to affect the majority of users and there is a very simple workaround for those who are affected. Because of a minor typing error in one of the build scripts (I used a lowercase 'u' instead of an uppercase 'U' - I was tired!) the keybinding (Shift+Windows+Alt+Up) which was supposed to modify the multimedia keybindings in the event of the sound card being muted wasn't enabled. The workaround is simply to press Alt+F2, type 'volume_keys' (without the speech marks) then press Enter, then press Alt+Y and Enter again. Now you can use Windows+Alt+Right to unmute and raise the system volume. Of course, I also managed to provide completely the wrong keybindings for the new multimedia volume controls in the keybindings.txt file as well, just to confuse matters (I did mention I was tired didn't I?). So to clarify, once you have activated the new multimedia keybindings (should you need to) you should use Windows+Alt+Right/Left to raise/lower the volume and Windows+Alt+Down to mute/unmute the volume. My OCD Demon is now muttering away about the fact that I should remaster Vinux 3.1 to eliminate this stupid error, otherwise the world will probably end. On the other shoulder my Sanity Angel is reminding me that I really need a good rest and if this is the only bug it has I should count my blessings and rejoice!

To be continued...

Vinux: The Third Generation!

On behalf of the whole Vinux community I am happy to announce the 3rd release of Vinux - Linux for the Visually Impaired, based on Ubuntu 10.04 - Lucid Lynx. This version of Vinux provides three screen-readers, two full-screen magnifiers, dynamic font-size/colour-theme changing as well as support for USB Braille displays. Vinux is now available both as an installable live CD and as a .deb package which will automatically convert an existing installation of Ubuntu Lucid into an accessible Vinux system! In addition, we now have our own Vinux package repository (from which you can install our customised packages with apt-get/synaptic) and a dedicated Vinux IRC channel. In the very near future we will also be launching a Vinux Wiki and releasing special DVD, USB and Virtual Editions of Vinux 3.0!

The Day After Tomorrow!

Unlike in the ecological disaster movie of the same title, the future for Vinux is looking very good! We are now approaching the release of the next version of Vinux, the third major release and there have been a whole host of bug fixes and new features included. The most significant change this time around is that the development is being led by Bill Cox instead of myself. This has been a positive move for two reasons: A. Bill's skills and knowledge of Bash Scripting, Gnome Accessibility and the inner workings of the Linux operating system far exceeds mine (I have never pretended to be anything other than an enthusiastic and dedicated amateur, who makes progress through trial and error - but mainly error!). And B. This means I have been able to sit on my fat arse and watch NCIS sometimes in the evenings instead of spending every waking moment hacking!

Bill has now sorted out most of the bugs that prevented us from using Ubuntu as the basis for Vinux in the 2nd series: i.e. the lack of responsiveness and stability when using Orca, and most of the problems which were caused when using packages which required root permissions. Bill has modified the PulseAudio sound server to run in system mode and channeled all of the speech software; Orca, Speakup and Yasr to use Speech-Dispatcher and Espeak, which provides a seamless user experience when shifting between the three screen-readers. He has also reintroduced Compiz magnification in addition to the Orca magnifier which was left out of the second series based on Debian. Apart from the improvements to the accessibility of Vinux, there are also some new features such as EasyInstall scripts - icons on the desktop and in the menus which allow a user to install suites of packages such as Open Office or the Non-Free Multimedia Codecs with one click! We are also toying with then idea of including the Pcmanfm file manager which offers a much more responsive performance than the default Nautilus file manager. This edition will also see the reintroduction of the core CLI applications and the customised Bash aliases that were introduced in the Vinux 2.1 CLI editions. Of course the main advantage of switching back to Ubuntu is the improved hardware compatibility it offers especially for wireless connectivity which was always a problem with the Debian based 2nd series. While Bill has done most of the hard work other members of the mailing list have of course helped and supported Bill by submitting scripts or ideas, testing the alpha and beta editions or just providing moral support. So thanks to everyone who has contributed, I am not going to mention individuals in case I miss someone out.

Apart from the forthcoming release itself there have also been other significant developments. We have now been offered several more mirrors to host Vinux Iso images on, and we plan to launch a new Vinux Wiki, Forum and IRC Chat channel alongside the release of Vinux 3.0 - so a special thanks to everyone involved in this process, taking on these responsibilities allows Bill and myself to concentrate on the development process. Perhaps the most significant development is the creation of a more mature Vinux Build Script and a Vinux package repository on Launchpad which allows anyone to turn a standard install of Ubuntu Lucid into a Vinux-like system. David Knight created the first Vinux build script, and this simplified the process somewhat, I then mutilated David's scripts to create the first CLI editions of Vinux, but Bill has taken this to a whole new level. Instead of being a single script with a few data files, Bill has created four separate scripts, three of which are used to turn an installed system into Vinux, the fourth to remaster the installed system and create a new Iso image. This means that nearly anyone can have a fully accessible system, without having to download and install Vinux, as long as they start with a default Ubuntu Lucid installation. The scripts are now hosted on SourceForge using Git so that other developers can get involved in the process. I managed to get the hang of it in a few hours (with a little coaching from Bill) so it can't be that hard - but you do have to know what you are doing if you don't want to destroy all of Bill's hard work!

Ubuntu will be releasing the 2nd Beta version of Lucid on Thursday and a Release Candidate on the 22nd April, The final release of Ubuntu 10.04 is planned for the 29th April and unless there are any unforeseen catastrophic bugs Vinux 3.0 should be released in the 1st week of May.

The Future's Bright - The Future's Orange!

Over the last few weeks Bill Cox has made significant progress on fixing the problems caused by PulseAudio in Ubuntu. Some of these fixes have actually been ported back into the development of Ubuntu and at the moment it looks like this will provide a very responsive and stable accessibility experience. Although it is not quite as snappy as Orca with Alsa on Debian, it is very close and Ubuntu of course offers much better hardware compatibility. Coupled with the fact that Remastersys doesn't yet support Squeeze and it is very likely that the final release of Squeeze may be delayed even further, it looks like we will initially be going with an Ubuntu-only version for Vinux 3.0! This will also provide a simpler installation process, a USB installer and WUBI support. I have spent the last few days working out how to built up the iso from scratch starting with the mini.iso, so that it contains all of the necessary files but still fits on a CD. If there are no nasty surprises ahead then this will become the first LTS version of Vinux with three years support and updates. Bill has also created a Vinux repository so we will be able to provide patches, updates and Vinux specific packages through synaptic and/or apt-get. There will also hopefully be a DVD sized 'Leviathan' edition which will contain lots of extra packages, but it may not be possible to provide a pure CLI version as the Ubuntu version of Remastersys requires a GUI to work. The main release will however come with speakup and a basic range of CLI applications pre-installed. So I would like to thank Bill for all of the hard work he has done, as well as everyone else who has contributed to the development process by submitting fixes, suggestions and/or feedback.

New Year's Resolution: 2010x365!

So what does the new year hold for Vinux? Well I have just started work on version 2.0 of the Vinux build script which will allow the user to create a CLI, GUI or HYB(rid) version of Vinux from a standard Debian installation. It will allow you to choose between nine pre-configured builds or create your own unique customised version. The pre-configured builds include CLI, GUI and HYB versions of the 'dna', 'std' and 'max' editions. The main release of Vinux will be based on the HYB 'std' version providing a basic range of both CLI and GUI applications. Obviously the 'max' edition of the GUI and HYB versions will be DVD sized images, the HYB version containing all of the required, recommended and additional packages in the Vinux suite. The next release will be Vinux 2.2, which will probably be the last version of Vinux based on Debian Lenny (5.03). Once Vinux 2.2 is released and any bugs fixed I plan to start working on the Debian Squeeze version (Vinux 3.0) using the same scripts which will provide better hardware support and new versions of Gnome, Orca and Open Office etc. There is a lot of work to do and I estimate it will take me at least a month to get the script into a state were I can start making test builds - I hope to have Vinux 2.2 out by Easter if possible.

However that is only part of the story. There are of course other members of the Vinux Development Group who are working on their own sub-projects. Bill Cox is now working on a version of Vinux based on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. He is trying to resolve the latency and stability issues caused by the PulseAudio sound system and seems to be making very good progress. This means that there will hopefully be two versions of Vinux 3.0 - a Debian based version and an Ubuntu based version which will provide users with a choice between stability and cutting edge packages/features. Mobeen will keep producing the VMWare virtual editions of Vinux, and is considering setting up his own website/hosting platform and a Vinux User Forum to differentiate between the needs of users and developers. David Ring will hopefully be producing USB versions of Vinux and possibly a special CLI version based on INX. Don Raikes is working on some scripts with dialog front-ends to ease the process of partitioning, formatting and imaging hard drives, as well as a Vinux installer and possibly a specialised forensics version of Vinux. I am also hoping that David Knight will be able to contribute to the Vinux build script again once his work and family responsibilities allow him to. I hope I haven't missed anything or anyone out!

Linux Distro Review 2009!

I have spent the last week trying out ten of the most popular Linux distros both as live CD's and as installed systems on both desktop and laptop computers. Here is a brief summary of my findings so far:

The distribution with the best accessibility out of the box was without doubt Adriane Knoppix 6.2 which is a special edition of Knoppix aimed at visually impaired users. It provides a simple menu driven console session by default using the espeak voices with the SBL console screenreader. This provides a choice of popular activities such as internet browsing, sending e-mails and file-management etc. If the user wants to use standard GUI tools then they can start an LXDE desktop session using Orca. You are then able to navigate the menus and use most of the GTK based applications and Compiz can be used as a screen magnifier if your video card supports 3D. However, if you know what you are doing Fedora, Open Solaris, OpenSuse and Ubuntu all offer Orca, Magnification and Braille support as long as you are able to enable and configure it yourself.

The best looking distribution was a close call between Fedora, Mandriva and Open Solaris, which all had very eye-catching, modern looking desktop and window colour schemes. I felt that Fedora 12 just pipped the others as everything just seemed to work together really well: the icons, window borders and the wallpaper etc. This is of course the most subjective judgement and isn't really of much interest to visually impaired users.

The best distribution for beginners is still Ubuntu 9.10, although Fedora, Mandriva and OpenSuse are all catching up very quickly. The killer feature is Ubuntu's hardware detection and compatibility which just seems to be able to handle any hardware I can throw at it. It also offers to download multimedia codecs for you if you try to play an unsupported format, which seems to be one of the hardest things for beginners to get their head around.

Puppy Linux 4.31 came top in three different categories: best live distribution, best performance on old computers and best distribution for netbooks. Puppy is a very small distro (about 100MB) that runs entirely in the ram. It provides a wide range of desktop tools and works on a wide range of hardware. As a live distribution it is much faster than any other distro, and it allows you to remove the CD once booted, which allows you to burn CD's or play DVD's etc. Puppy supports all popular multimedia formats out of the box and even plays commercial DVD's. Because it runs in the ram it is also excellent on old computers and netbooks where system resources are minimal. It supports most popular netbook models out of the box and is the only distro I would ever consider using on a netbook. If it was accessible it would also have been the best overall distribution and my favourite distribution.

The distribution which wins the title of worst all-round distribution is GnuSense 2.3 , although this is primarily because it only includes open-source software that is free in the strictest sense of the word. This means that you get very few hardware drivers and no restricted multimedia codecs either installed or provided in the repositories. While this may be the purest distribution around it means in practise there will be many things you cannot do without a lot of fiddling.

OpenSuse 11.2 takes the title for best distribution for power-users and best all-round distribution. Without doubt this distribution has the best selection of tools installed by default, very good accessibility support once installed and configured and its most impressive feature is it compatibility with Microsoft networks which would make it the only choice for someone wanting to integrate fully with a Windows network. OpenSuse has come on a long way since last time I tried it and it would have also been my personal favourite but for one feature it doesn't currently offer.

So my personal favourite (as a sighted user) is Ubuntu 9.10! It provides a very easy to use system, a good selection of desktop packages out of the box and of course excellent hardware detection and support. However it does not provide the number of tool and packages that OpenSuse provides by default and the single feature that makes it my favourite over OpenSuse is that you can easily remaster Ubuntu using the Ubuntu Customisation Kit or Remastersys, while OpenSuse only offers an online distribution build service which you are not allowed to distribute without removing all the logos etc. For me, being able to remaster a distribution, either for your own use or for public distribution is absolutely essential. This is because I don't want to have to install a system on multiple computers and have to configure them each manually, and it is the easiest and most efficient way to create a new distro. If you don't want to do this i would strongly suggest you consider using OpenSuse 11.2!

I haven't compared these distribution to Vinux or Debian, because I don't want to be accused of bias, but if anyone would like compare what Vinux and/or Debian have to offer then please post your reviews to the mailing list.

Last minute addition!

I have just had a look at the latest Linux Mint 8.0 which is based on Ubuntu 9.10 - obviously it uses pulseaudio and has the same kind of problems as Ubuntu 9.10 as regards accessibility - although I am planning to do an experiment and see if remastering from the live CD with pulseaudio disabled allows me to make a remaster which uses alsa by default. I will let everyone know if this works - or whether this causes other problems - the only problem I have noticed so far is the master volume control doesn't work - but alsamixer does anyway. Apart from that Linux Mint has two distinct advantages over Ubuntu - firstly it comes with all of the restricted codecs installed by default so mp3, flash and wma files etc should just play (I don't think it will play encrypted DVD's) and secondly its cool minty theme of black and green just looks so good it makes a mac look plain! So if you want to recommend Linux to any sighted friends or relatives I would recommend Linux Mint 8.0 as a real showcase for linux - the hardware just works, you can play all your existing multimedia files and it looks amazing! I have just installed it on a machine at work with a dual monitor setup and everything just worked out of the box and it just looks so cool.

To be or not to be?

On the 28th November Vinux will be one year old! We have made it through the most difficult period as many projects fail within the first 3 to 6 months. I think we have made reasonable progress in this time although there is still a long way to go before we have a stable, easy to use product. However, as always I like to evaluate everything I do and try to identify strengths and weaknesses, in order to improve things. The first few releases of Vinux (Vibuntu) were very easy to install and configure, but the speech was unstable and unresponsive. When we moved to Debian the stablility and responsiveness of the speech improved but at the cost of less hardware compatibility and a more complex installation process. More recently the release of a CLI editon brought even more stability and responsiveness in the form of speakup, although this was aimed more at intermediate and advanced users. I am hoping that the switch to Debian live-helper from remastersys will bring us improvements to the installation process and the performance of the live CD in the near future. So for me this is a time to step back from the development process and try to get an overview of what we have achieved and where we are going.

The first question has to be is there really a need for Vinux, and if so how well does Vinux meet those needs in comparison with other solutions? So do we really need a distribution aimed at visually impaired users, or should we be encouraging the big developers to make their distributions accessible to all? I personally think that it would be better for everyone if the big distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSuse did take the accessibility issues more seriously, but the reality is that like their commercial counterparts their main market is the sighted mainsteam user. So at least in the short term it seems a Vinux type distribution is required especially for new users. I suspect when and if Linux gets into the education system, then they will be forced to cater for students with a variety of disabilities and the support contracts will make it worth their while to meet these needs. Of course the strongest argument for an open source solution is the extortionate price of accessibility software for a group who are generally economically disadvantaged, even more so in the third world.

So assuming that a specialist open source distribution is needed at least in the short term, then how does Vinux compare with other solutions. Well there aren't really many distributions that are targeted at VI users, the only active project that springs to mind is Adrianne Knoppix, the Oralux project was abandoned although there are one or two localised distributions for example 'Blindbuntu' which is a Czech language distribution. However Adrianne Knoppix takes a very different approach to Vinux. The last time I checked it provided a menu driven console interface, a little bit like INX and GRML. This provides a series of choices for sending e-mails, editing text or surfing the internet. In fact I think the LinuxSpeaks project takes a similar approach. I have tried to avoid this approach with the CLI edition because although I want it to be as easy as possible to use, I want users to learn to use the console by typing commands and navigating ncurses interfaces etc, Similarly in the GUI edition I want everything to work out of the box, but I want the user to learn how to use Linux in the process. Once they are confident with how Vinux works, ideally they should be able to move onto any Gnome based distribution and configure it to their tastes. So I expect Vinux users to be tourists who will use Vinux to get their feet wet, and open the doors to the wider Linux world.

So now comes the difficult question: Just how many people have tried Vinux and how many people are actually using it? It seems that quite a lot of people have tried Vinux if the web statistics are to be believed. There have been approaching 4000 downloads of Vinux through the Softpedia portal and several thousand through the officail website. However many of these downloads will be the same people downloading the new versions as they are released. So for the sake of argument let's say that at least 1000 people have tried Vinux. Of those many, say 50% will find it too difficult to use and go back to Windows. Lets say another 25% manage to get it working but wouldn't consider installing it to their hard drive, but maybe use it as a live CD or USB recovery stick etc occasionally. Of the remaining 25% I imagine half of them (12.5%) tried to install it but ran into problems of some sort - either difficultly partitioning the drive(s) or hardware incompatibility e.g. unsupported wifi chipset.

This leaves us with 12.5% who might have been able to install it to their computers without any difficultly or hardware problems. Of which I imagine at least half would only see it as a backup system or novelty learning tool, not a primary working system. So there may be 6.25% who do consider Vinux to be a serious working as an alternate or additional tool, of which maybe a fifth may actually ditch Windows and use Vinux and/or Linux as their primary operating system, in other words about 1.25% of the original estimated 1000 users: Twelve and a half people in the world actually using Vinux as their main OS. (This only makes sense of course if we assume one of these users is either a midget or extremely fat). Ironically I am both short and fat, so perhaps that accounts for the mathematical anomaly. Which only leaves eleven.

So based on those purely theoretical and fairly conservative estimates is it worth while me putting in all of the energy and time it takes to make Vinux? Sometimes I feel like I am doing this for an imaginary audience, and no one is really interested in Vinux or Linux for that matter. In the UK and the USA it seems that Microsoft rules supreme and no-one outside of a Star Trek convention has ever heard of Linux let alone tried it. I also get frustrated at my own lack of knowledge and skills: I am self-taught, as you can probably tell and make progress by just trying things and seeing if they work. More often that not it doesn't but when it does I get a great sense of achievement. However, because of my lack of knowledge I can't solve the really big problems like the stability of speech-dispatcher or the inaccessibility of some applications etc. So sometimes I get very frustrated when I just can't seem to make any progress. It is at times like this that I sometimes question why I am doing this. My life would be a lot simpler and more relaxing if I didn't make Vinux. I could just use whichever distro I fancied, or make my own customised distro for myself, or even a mainstream distribution for sighted users - that would be so easy to do, because putting together a distribution without having to take account of accessibility would be a walk in the park! On the other hand then it would just be another distribution amongst many and there is no reason why mine would be any more attractive than anyone elses. Of course I could get really lazy and just use a distro out of the box, install what ever applications I wanted and configure it and leave it at that, but I do like to twiddle, and it was frustration at having to reconfigure a system everytime you upgraded or tried a new distribution that got me into making remasters in the first place. The first remaster ever made was a bumper edition of Ubuntu using the Ubuntu Customisation Kit, and the first one I released to the public was DingoPlus, a version of Puppy Linux 4.0 modified for use on the Asus Eeepc 701 - which I am still using today!

So it is over to you - how many people are actually using Vinux as a serious operating system? Am I wasting my time? Do we really need Vinux? What is the best alternative currently? How does Vinux compare to Windows and Mac? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life and was there a third shooter on the grassy knoll? I am planning to have a break from Vinux development this weekend and have a play with lots of different distributions and then write a review of their pros and cons from both a sighted and VI perspective. A penny for your thoughts!

Debian Live Helper v Remastersys!

I have spent this weekend trying out the Debian live-helper package this weekend. It is the official package for creating Debian live CD's and is used to produce all of the different versions: Gnome, KDE, Xfce, Lxde and several CLI versions. It can provide a standard Debian installer or a Live CD installer which copies the live system to the hard drive. This tool provides a lot of options not available with remastersys such as a choice of syslinux or grub (on the CD), several pre-defined package lists for a Gnome desktop or KDE desktop etc. It allows you to pretty much change any aspect of the Live CD. The one thing is does not allow you to do easily is to change the user settings, to provide accessibility out of the box. In order to do this you have to boot the iso, make the changes manually and then copy the user area to /etc/skel, which is what I already have to do with remastersys. So in this sense there is no advantage over remastersys, as the changes either have to be done manually or by a script anyway. So on the one hand the Debian Live helper offers a lot more options than remastersys, but still requires a manual configuration. So the easy option would be to stick with remastersys because the script is already well developed and relatively simple to use. However in the long run, once the config files are created for Debian Live Helper it would become a lot easier to use and offer many improvements in functionality etc. This is a tough one! On the one hand I really want to go with the simplest option, but if I could get the Debian Live Helper configuration sorted out this would give a more powerful and sustainable solution. Maybe I will persevere with Live Helper for a few more days and see if I can get the user settings sorted out...

Vinux 2.1 Leviathan Edition!

I am happy to announce the release of Vinux 2.1 Leviathan! This is a monstrous hybrid of the Vinux CLI max edition, the standard GUI edition and a wide range of additional applications including Open Office 3.0, the Evolution mail client, the Inkscape vector graphics package, the Scribus desktop publishing tools, the Bluefish webpage editor, the Gambas 2 IDE as well as much more. Obviously not all of these extra tools are accessible to speech/braille users, but partially sighted users can access them with the screen magnifier. This is a very large iso (1.7GB) so you will need a reasonably fast broadband connection to download it. The URL's are:

http://vinux.org.uk/iso/Vinux-GUI-leviathan-2.1.iso
http://vinux.org.uk/iso/Vinux-GUI-leviathan-2.1.iso.md5.txt

I didn't originally intend to release this for public use, it started out as an attempt to create a personalised version of Vinux for my own use. Then as it came together I began to think that other people may want to use it as well! I created it using a hastily modified version of the CLI build script which starts with the standard 2.0 GUI version, adds all of the CLI tools and utilities included in the CLI 'max' version and well as a large number of useful GUI applications that I use on a regular basis. I then had to do a little manual configuration before remastering it to DVD. It turned out to be an interesting little project that I managed to complete in one weekend. Now the hard bit - merging the CLI and GUI build scripts so that it is possible to make either version or even a hybrid GUI/CLI edition using the same script...