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Odilia, a linux screen reader initiative, first alpha release is out (Page 8 of 9)
AudioGames.net Forum → Off-topic room → Odilia, a linux screen reader initiative, first alpha release is out
Posts: 176 to 200 of 205
#177 2022-02-03 16:18:36 (edited by bgt lover 2022-02-03 16:22:15)
@176: what link is invalid?
now to other linux screenreaders, we indeed have fenrir, also tdsr which I use extensively in tui only mode, and finally we have orca for graphical stuff. While orca is not the best and that's why we're trying to make a screenreader that makes the situation as good as we are able to make it, orca is still something that can be used well enough on linux, I used the damn thing for 6 months or so before university started. So yeah, for people getting into linux now, I don't recommend you wait for odilia because you think orca is the most crappy of craps, just try it and see how a11y is in general, try getting used to the ecosystem and how things are done. If odilia will become a thing in the end, the best we can do is make the screenreading process quicker and more efficient, perhaps also by collaborating with desktop developers to add accessibility where there isn't and so on. However, we aren't going to fundamentally change linux to have windows shortcuts or anything, the terminal will still be the terminal and so on, so for those who want to get into linux, just go ahead and try it, when odilia will be ready your life will probably become that more productive.
#178 2022-02-03 17:48:07 (edited by JaceK 2022-02-03 17:49:47)
And on that note. I have a setup that for me is 99.9% accessible.
Yes, it's my Ratpoison setup. No, it won't work for everyone at all if you're used to a desktop. But here's my issue with desktops.
They are clunky. They don't have great A11Y. Each one has its own quirks and issues.
I've been through Mate, Gnome, XFCE, LXDE/LXQT and discarded each one for not doing what I want. Mate doesn't play nice with Chromium based stuff and freezes Orca up at times. Gnome is a resource hog and has well documented issues withh A11Y, LXDE/LXQT are simple and bare bones like a stripped down Mate but need a lot of tweaking to make work, and XFCE, I dislike LXDE because it's such a foreign concept.
So back to my ultra simple, keyboard driven WM I go. Now will this work for everyone?
Not at all, no. But I'm over here not wanting to wrangle with having to fight with a DE that freezes up. If I didn't need a browser for web stuff, and I could find a browser that let me do stuff like a CLI Pidgin, and VOIP calls from a TTY...I'd be set and quite probably CLI only. Sadly that won't, as far as I know, work. See for what I do, Orca is perfectly useable. Is it 100% flawlessly perfect? Nah, but, it's good enough for what /I/ need to do. 41.1/.2 is a world ahead of 40, which is a world ahead of 3.38/3.36, which is what LTS distros are stuck with.
EDIT: Also, don't forget Arch ships with espeakup that they have in their accessible installer wiki page/archinstall/recommended to install via pacstrap step, too. Fenrir is pretty nice once you get it set up right
#179 2022-02-05 17:33:06
actually I'm waiting for odilia, because currently I don't have a hardware that can allow me to keep up with a linux vm with more than 2gb of ram. If linux lite were to be adding some accessibility tools which they said is gunna happen when 6.0 gets released, that would allow me to experience a good enough linux desktop experience with 2gb because the minimum thing for it is 700something megs of ram, and the recommended specs are 1gb of ram and a 1.5ghz processor. So? Any thoughts?
#180 2022-02-05 23:04:04 (edited by Ethin 2022-02-05 23:06:18)
I like how you guys are comparing Orca to NvDA. iOS vs. Android debates, anyone? Its quite hilarious, really, that you guys expect Orca to have feature parity with NVDA. That's not happening. Unless of course your willing to put in the effort and time required to port NVDA to Linux, I mean. And good luck doing that. Hell, good luck even getting that kind of work even accepted. Given how like 50 percent of the NvDA repository *isn't* source code but compiled programs because the developers *don't* want you to have to build anything to try the bleeding edge features (despite the fact that that's, you know, the whole point of a source code repository, and if you don't know how to build things, you shouldn't be downloading the code from it), it'll be a nightmare getting all those binaries emplaced.
My Github
#181 2022-02-05 23:28:22 (edited by JaceK 2022-02-05 23:33:22)
@179:
You cann, kinda, make Orca work on 2GB of RAM. With caveats of course, with a few caveats...
1. You need to simplify down your desktop or window manager. Strychnine can be tweaked to make LXDE/LXQT play nice with Orca and Ratpoison. Both are far, far more suited to a 2GB RAM system than something like Gnome or Mate. With a 2GB system, and my setup I rarely crack a gig of RAM usage, having LXDE/LXQT/Ratpoison sitting at 200-250mb of RAM sitting idle, and 500mb with Seamonkey goig with several tabs and Orca not lagging any.
2. You need to use lighter weight apps in tandem with a lightweight desktop or window manager. For example, Youtube via pipe-viewer and mpv weighs in at less memory than loading up Youtube in a browser, and is a lot easier to use.
working.
3. You need to change up your habits for a low resource system as well, and find apps that work with it.
I'll be blunt. If you're pinning your hopes to make Linux workable on a new screenreader that's no even out yet, then you've your head in the clouds. Orca is being worked on, as slow as it is. I can look in my Orca mail folder and see how much stuff Igdalia gets swamped with on a daily basis. Now add in all the other stuff Igdalia does, plus Joany, the sole dev, only having so many hours in the day to work on Orca, have a life, and all that fun stuff...
stuff. Look, I like an alternative idea. But to shit on Orca saying it's not useable is patently false. It's improved since months ago. Making a graphiccal screenreader is not an easy thing at all, vs a console screenreader like TDSR or espeakup or Fenrir.
EDIT: Okay you want thoughts:
1. Since you got 2GB
See points 1 and 2 above. I'd say XFCE/LXDE or LXQT based desktops or a lightweight window manager/desktop that plays nice with Orca. LXDE/LXQT have worked in my testing, as has Ratpoison. LXDE/LXQT are more bare bones minimal desktops I got to work with Strychnine and I don't have much experience with XFCE however but all of these are lightweight and don't come close to using up all 2GB of RAM.
2GB isn't going to cut it for most desktop environments in Linux, but there are options out there for you
#182 2022-02-05 23:35:34
@180, That's not at all true. There are no binaries in the repo.
#183 2022-02-05 23:55:22 (edited by Ethin 2022-02-05 23:56:28)
@182, yes, there are, in its submodules. Specifically, the primary submodule of this atrocity is nvda-misc-deps, which contains the binaries (along with other submodules). But since submodules can technically be regarded as a part of the main repository, well...
My Github
#184 2022-02-06 07:33:08 (edited by E-t-i-eloquence 2022-02-06 07:33:47)
the thing is, I'm not a super hyper mega ultra technical person, so I don't know how to handle points 1 and 2. I don't know how to tweak the configuration files or whatever.
#185 2022-02-06 12:18:17
Which is understandable, but there's folks out there (like StormDragon) who have taken on that task of making it not super technical however.
I'd be more than willing to share my configs with clear instructions on where to put them so it all works however, but I don't have the skills to make a .iso you can just plug in and go, unfortunately
#186 2022-02-06 18:33:32
thanks for your generossity jace, but I'm not familiar enough with linux desktops and file systems and how to manage files and etc, not even the command line sadly. I'm still trying to learn, but I'm kinda excited about the upcoming linuxlite6.0 release coming in june, they mentionned adding some accessibility tools so that's kind of a boom for me
#187 2022-02-06 19:00:23
Remind me what DE Linux Light uses? I'm thinking XFCE but I may be getting that mixed up with something else
#188 2022-02-06 19:38:01
@186 try network chuks linux for hackers course
ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what
made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?"
#189 2022-02-07 00:35:00
hey jace, I think it is xfce, and agent47, thanks! I'll check it out before I forget it! Thanks everyone, I'll come up with more weird questions soon! Stay tooned
#190 2023-03-03 13:12:12
So, I hope that this isn't seen as threat necromancy, in case it is, write your opinion down on a sheat of toilet paper and use as suggested.
I am just curious on if the project is still in active development. I looked at the github page and there doesn't seam to be anything happening since somewhere in 2022.
So, was the project put on ice or what's the current status?
Greetings Moritz.
#191 2023-03-03 15:24:33
@190
Latest commit
@TTWNO
TTWNOUpdate README.md
…
3 / 7 checks OK
15 hours ago
I'm not sure where did you get the since 2022 thing, But here you go.
#192 2023-03-03 16:49:21
don't wory, it's still in development. Thing is, we don't want to deliver unstable features and something too badly broken to use, that's why we don't post each thing done, since most of them aren't affecting or concerning a user anyway. If you want to know all the gory details though, feel free to checkout the commits, gh prs/issues, and even hop on our communication platforms, they are all bridged so doesn't matter which one you join.
#193 2023-03-04 03:14:25
Ah, no worrys, was just wondering about the date in 2022, might have looked at the wrong repo in the end, don't know. But cool to see that the project is still ongoing, ll be curious on what you come up with.
Greetings Moritz.
#194 2023-03-04 03:18:10
so, what new things have been done that will help a user then?
#195 2023-03-04 13:27:39
well, you know, basic screenreading stuff, it takes so long because it's all done from scratch, so all the infrastructure has to be remade. In any case, these features either work now, or have little to go in terms of development before they actually work, will probably be done by 0.1.0.
* reading of controls in accessible applications
* preliminary web navigation support. Caret navigation doesn't currently work as well as it could because we have to figure out the hacks required to make it work without using orca specific workarounds
* browse mode works outside web applications as far as I remember, as in you can use it to quicknav among controls of a native application
* all our key shortcuts work both in x and wayland. Of course, with a hack, but we hope that's temporary
* the screenreader itself no longer asks for root privilidges to install the keyhook, we use a separate hotkey daemon for that, more increased security compared to the prototype
That's about all. I mean, not so different from the prototype, but this version is much less dependent on c libraries, it has a better overall code architecture and it's faster than the prototype in my experience while testing it.
Of course, because we're talking about the first release of a post-prototype slightly better than alpha quality software, don't expect large awesome features just yet, honestly looking back I'm amazed this is actually a thing and we managed to do something workable, with this small amount of documentation we have and all that. That out of the way, I expect awesome things to emerge out of this product, if not by 0.1.0, then 0.2.0 will hopefully come with more awesome stuff, such as object nav, better wayland support, making the key daemon unnecesary, probably other things as well, we don't really have roadmaps for 0.2.0 yet
#196 2023-03-22 14:21:44
hello there!
version 0.1.0 has finally been released to the wider public!
if you want to check it out, feel free to do so, dropping bug reports as you find bugs, obviously. In any case, you can check the release notes here.
finally, we're here! A big thank you to the community who waited patiently for this release, as well as everyone who contributed, in one way or another, to the project's growth, we're here, we hear you, and we'll never forget our community! let's show the world it can indeed be done, make linux great again! As I always say and as it's written on the website, we're building a linux screenreader, one step at a time. This isn't only us, but you as well, every one of you who didn't give up on the project just because this took a relatively long time. Because you believed in the success of a better future for the linux desktop, we did as well, and because we knew people out there believed in us, we didn't faulter either.
Now, the only thing I regret, is how few contributions I had to odilia since the university year begun, those people really aren't playing around with homeworks and such, plus the internship thing didn't make life easier either. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute more in the future, since things are gradually getting less tense, so here's hope. But nevermind that, you guys, have fun with odilia 0.1.0!
Don't forget to post here, if either you opened it and it works relatively well, or you did so and your computer exploded! we'd love to hear your experiences either way, but hopefully there'll be less explosions than last time ☺
if you want to chat with us, don't faulter in your resolve whatever you do, just go to our matrix space, discord or irc, we'll fix you up with something for your issues, or perhaps solve your curiosities...for good.
#198 2023-03-22 18:03:40
well its sertinly something exciting!
#199 2023-03-30 21:48:03
that is great to know that this is still being worked on. I hope this thing would be able to work with most of the DE out their as well as WM as well.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Boo15mario
#200 2023-04-01 01:54:15
all in due time, guys. In the meantime, I know it does work with sway, when speech dispatcher cooperates, which is not always.
Posts: 176 to 200 of 205
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