For my work machine I prefer OSX, because it A) has bash wich is nice.and B) even with the corporate Zero trust push remains stable. personally I have gone fully linux at home and am still likely to need some level of windows. but may be able to run it in a VM wich will be handy. but windows has become an overt dumpster fire. On Sun, May 4, 2025 at 7:18 AM Eric Oyen via PLUG-discuss < plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote: > Well, the BSD platform that OS X, XI, XII, XIII and XIV) are BSD based, > and since that OS has many similarities to Linux (including functionality, > apps, development environments, etc) that there is virtually little > difference. About the only major difference is the GUI running on top > (Apple uses Aqua whereas linux uses any of about a dozen DM’s) Also, the > screen reader available in the apple platform is certainly well thought out > and mostly thoroughly debugged. Linux has about a half dozen available > screen readers (BrlTTY, Emacsspeak, Speakup and a few other command line > variants) and ORCA for any of the GTK based DM’s (such as Gnome, FVWM and > others). KDE is still not completely on board with ORCA as some of the API > calls and inter-process communications calls aren’t completely compatible. > Now, one of the very few things I like about linux is that I can use it > remotely with a screen reader on my end (command line). I would have to set > up Enlightenment Sound Deamon in order to port sound from any of the DM’s > to my end (VNC and other Remote Desktop apps don’t have this facility built > in and thus require external setup). This pretty much means that I can’t > use OS X remotely except on command line (Also, ESD is not on the macports > development tree or home-brew). It would be nice to have the same > functionality of JAWS (non-free windows screen reader) that can link to a > remote machine also running jaws. NVDA can’t do that yet. So, if I need to > remote admin a windows box via it’s GUI, jaws is the only tool I can use. > Now, if someone would just get the VNC type remote desktop platforms to be > able to forward system sound, that would make my life immensely easier for > a GUI DM on linux remotely. > > Now, as for development teams, I have found over the years that most of > them do not design in accessibility mostly because they are either lazy or > have never encountered blind people in their professional environment. I > have tried, repeatedly, over the years to bring these issues to many > developers on all three major platforms. Some (less than 10%) listen and > attempt to correct the issue. The other 90% are split into lazy (60% and > deliberately hostile to accessibility (30%). That last one is what causes > most of my frustration. I have been ignored, ghosted or in at least 10 > cases over the years basically told to shut up and live with it. In the two > most recent cases, I was firewall by DEI policy simply because I was not > part of the group they wanted (and that is politics which I won’t do more > than a brief mention of here, which just happened). In any case, Windows > still has a long way to go toward being fully accessible (Narrator is still > a joke IMHO) and in the apple ecosystem, there are a lot of devs that just > haven’t considered people like me as an important population metric to even > consider). As for Linux, quite a few of the accessibility projects over the > years are still around, although they are in significant need of coders to > help bolster their ranks). In the case of ORCa, I think it’s just 1 full > time project admin and about a half dozen volunteers trying to keep the > code base from falling behind the 8-ball. > > On a related accessibility front, I really wish the EFI consortium would > honestly consider using BrlTTY as a possible alternative display. It’s > small enough to be included, can work with system devices (such as a > speaker, etc) and would allow people like me to be able to properly admin > machines at or near the firmware level as needed. Many attempts by me and > many others over the years and we all get the same form response: thank you > for the suggestion, but we don’t feel there is enough call for this > addition. Oh well, they won’t understand until they are in my shoes, then > the yelling and screaming that will happen (oh boy!). However, I am not > holding my breath. > > Btw, still looking into making my Mac mini into a linux powered Mac mini. > > -Eric > From the Central Offices of the Technomage Guild, Complaints Dept. > > > > On Sat, 03 May 2025 23:30, David Schwartz wrote: > Would someone kindly tell me what’s so special about their favorite > version of Linux is versus MacOS, which is a BSD Unix derivative? > > I’ve think I’ve mentioned my harem of Macs: > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. Stephen