Subject: Re: Linux vs OS X (was Re: Running Win10 after end of life)

From: Stephen Partington via PLUG-discuss <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 May 2025 13:43:18 -0400

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 <
[email-masked]> 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:
>
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-- 
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
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