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Accessibility, what would the perfect blind Linux Desktop be like for you?
(discussion.fedoraproject.org)
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Prior art is instructive: Orca.
To sum it up. Screenreaders are the main assistive interface required by blind users to interact with system applications. Linux screenreaders such as Orca interface with the AT-SPI (Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface) to provide two core functionalities:
So that's the core. At a minimum, the desktop environment needs to ship with a bundled screenreader and AT-SPI coverage across all GUI system components. Fortunately this desktop environment already exists -- it's called Gnome.
Beyond just... shipping Gnome, the rest of the job would involve curating a list of accessible applications to be included in the out-of-box install, including blind-friendly default configurations. Ideally, there should be multiple configurations to choose from driven by a community wiki plus supporting configuration manager on the OS-side.
As for the underlying base distro -- I don't really think it matters. Immutable distros only provide declarative management for system components and most of what this project would need to cover are userland. It makes sense to borrow many of the children of such distros when building a configuration manager (e.g.: toolbox, home-manager), though these will conveniently work anywhere you want to bring them and thus won't constain the field of available options. With that being said, the ideal base distro would have the following characteristics: