Linux Accessibility Resources

General Linux Accessibility Resources

• Shields, Ian: Learn Linux 101: Accessibility, IBM Developer, 09.07.2020.
• Markus Lemcke: Barrierefreiheit / Bedienungshilfen bei Linux – Ubuntu, German article; last updated on 7 July 2016.
• Samuel Thibault: Accessibility Tips: LUG for Linux User Groups who want to welcome people with disabilities.
• Carrefour Blinux: French mailing list about Linux and accessibility.
• De La Rue, Michael; Snider, Sharon: Linux Accessibility HOWTO. Version 3.1 of this guide was published in June 2002; the document has not been updated since that time and is outdated.
• Steenhout, Nicolas: Practical hands-on accessibility testing (LinuxConfAu 2018, 99 minutes, 25.01.2018).
• Accessibilité des logiciels libres: article on the wiki of the Debian Facile project. This page is no longer available on the wiki.

Desktop Environments

• The GNOME Project: Accessibility (GNOME Developer Documentation). See also the Introduction to Assistive Technologies.
• MATE Desktop Environment. MATE is a fork of the now unmaintained GNOME 2. When the GNOME Project released GNOME 3, much of the accessibility work had to be redone. For this reason, many people with disabilities continued using GNOME 2 and, more recently, MATE. Some consider MATE the best choice for users with serious visual impairments (including blindness). (However, GNOME 3 has a better magnifier and a black-on-white contrast theme.)
  In 2014, Linux Mint included MATE as one of its default desktop environments. Fedora also has a MATE Compiz spin. Other distributions that offer a Mate desktop are PCLinuxOS (which aims to ease the transition from Microsoft Windows to Linux), Ubuntu Mate, Arch Linux (see its wikipage about desktop environments), Debian (you need to select the desktop you want during the installation process), Mageia (you need to select Mate during the installation process), Gentoo (see the Gentoo page about Mate) and OpenSUSE (see the release notes). For a lightweight Linux distribution that offers MATE, see Alpine Linux (installation instructions for MATE).

Desktop Environments: Information and Tips for Computer Users

• GNOME: Universal Access: guide to GNOME's accessibility features.
• Watkins, Don: How I use Linux accessibility settings, Opensource.com, 23.01.2022 (Creative Commons).
• Ubuntu 18 - Zoom or Magnify Screen (Romel Fernando on YouTube, 9 minutes, 01.10.2019).
  This video does not only show the different options for the magnfier itself but also how you can define shortcut keys to enable the magnfier, something which the Gnome Help page Magnify a screen area does not mention. (Accessed on 01.12.2021).
• Click and move the mouse pointer using the keypad, Ubuntu Documentation (no date; accessed on 22.10.2022).
  About the mouse keys feature (Gnome desktop).
• KDE Community Wiki: Accessibility.
  See also the applications KMag, KMouseTool and KMouth.
• KDE UserBase Wiki: Applications/Accessibility: guide to accessibility features and tools in KDE.
• Qt Accessibility, Qt Wiki, last updated in 2015 (accessed on 02.02.2022).
• The MATE Desktop Environment has (or had) a good reputation for accessibility, but the website has no documentation about its accessibility features. (Last verified in November 2021.)
• Xfce 4.14 Documentation: Accessibility (Xfce4-settings). This page mentions Orca (from the Gnome project), keyboard accessibility (sticky keys, slow keys, bounce keys) and mouse emulation, but does not say anything about zooming or magnification.
• Xfce project: Accessibility in Xfce Core 4.10 Roadmap.
• Lemcke, Markus: Barrierefreiheit / Bedienungshilfen bei Linux – Ubuntu, Marlem-Software, 07.07.2016.
• Lemcke, Markus: Barrierefreiheit bei Linux – Ubuntu: Zugangshilfen: Bedienung für Blinde und Sehbehinderte, Marlem-Software, 08.07.2016.
• Lemcke, Markus: Barrierefreiheit bei Linux – Ubuntu: Zugangshilfen: Zeigen und Klicken, Marlem-Software, 13.07.2016.
• Lemcke, Markus: Barrierefreiheit bei Linux – Ubuntu: Neue Zugangshilfen bei der Version 18.04, Marlem-Software, 09.07.2018.
• Virtual Magnifying Glass: A free, open source, screen magnifier, for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X. The Virtual Magnifying Glass source code on SourceForge was last updated in 2019.
• magnifier [freeze version by minos-org] (last updated in early 2015).
• Blind Accessibility of Debian / XFCE - Random Access Review Ep6 (TheFakeVIP on YouTube, 9 minutes, 02.07.2019). This video reviews features such as Orca (Xfce's file mananger Thunar is not accessible with Orca), high contrast (white on black), the whisker menu (the search box is accessible),
• Tyson, Elliott: Visual Accessibility & Zoom in Mint and Other GNOME Distros (Elliott Tyson on YouTube, 15 minutes, 18.01.2017).
• Xfwm4 Zoom Desktop - Zoom In and Out - Linux XFCE (gotbletu on YouTube, 4 minutes, 25.06.2016).
  The zoom feature demonstrated in this video magnifies the desktop without magnifying the mouse pointer.
• Linux Tip | Use Zoom for HiDPI and Accessibility in Linux Mint (Joe Collins on YouTube, 12 minutes, 26.05.2017).
  This video focuses on Linux Mint Cinnamon. The Cinnamon desktop's accessibility features are similar to those in GNOME 3.
• Is there a way to zoom in on the screen AND mouse pointer in any Linux distribution? This question was posted on Unix & Linux Stack Exchange in November 2019.
• Linux Equivalent of Windows Ctrl to show Mouse Pointer. This question was posted on AskUbuntu in October 2017.
• Hartley, Matt: Linux Accessibility For The Visually Impaired - For The Record (Matt Hartley on YouTube, 22 minutes, 17.09.2018). This video is a reesponse to a question from a visually impaired user who wanted to know whether there is a version of Linux that would allow one to listen to highlighted text and that would allow one to dictate text in English and Spanish. Matt shows one how to install the Festival text-to-speech engine and a few related libraries, and how to adapt certain specific settings. Note that Matt is not an accessibility expert, so the process he presents may not be optimal.
• Getting Started with Orca and Chrome/Chromium, GNOME Wiki, last updated in October 2020.
• Importing accessibility options in recent versions of ubuntu, Ask Ubuntu, question asked in March 2021.

Accessibility in General-Purpose Distributions

• Prater, Devin: Linux Accessibility: an unmaintained Mess, , 08.05.2022.
  A blind computer users describes his experience with the Linux desktop. In the early days of the Linux desktop, there were distributions specifically for people with disabilities, namely Vinux and Sonar. After these disappeared, people had to rely on the accessibility features in mainstream distributions.
  Gnome 2 was the most accessible desktop Linux ever had. In Gnome 3, accessibility had to be redone because it was a completely new desktop, but no one was paid to do it. In Gnome 4, accessibility is not what is should be either. On the KDE desktop, progress is also very slow. Work is being done, but as is everything in the world of access technology, it’s very slow. Things happen practically only when a new sighted person is inspired to help, until they get burnt out by the lack of help from the open source community and lack of interest from the wider blind community. Mate, which is a continuation of Gnome 2, is also sliding backwards with regard to accessibility.
  The author also describes the challenge of installing Fedora (with the Mate desktop). Fedora has accessibility support turned off by default, whereas Debian has it turned on. However, accessibility for Chromium and Chromium-based applications needs to be turned on separately. And Chromium browser still become unusable after a few pages.
• Disabled new Linux user looking for advice, Reddit r/linux, 01.07.2022.
• What is the Ubuntu accessibility for blind people?, Ask Ubuntu, June 2015.
• Spencer Hunley: 6 reasons people with disabilities should use Linux, Opensource.com, 20 April 2015.
• Kendell Clark: Accessibility in Linux is good (but could be much better), Opensource.com, 4 May 2015.
• Kendell Clark: 8 accessible Linux distributions to try, Opensource.com, 17 August 2015.
  The distributions in this article are Vinux, Sonar, Fedora, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Trisquel, Talking Arch and Debian. (Linux Mind and OpenSUSE were excluded from the article due to accessibility issues at that time.)

Specialised Linux Distributions

• Accessible-Coconut is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu-Mate that claims to be completely accessible for persons with visual impairment.
  Accessible-Coconut provides some accessibility information in the form of a feature list on SourceForge. The listed features include an installation process is fully accessible to a visually challenged user, the console screenreader Fenrir, support for Braille input, accessible Chrome and Firefox, a Daisy player, accessible audio and video editing solutions. However, it does not say anything about the screenreader Orca, zoom functions, high-contrast themes or features to make the cursor more visible.
  See the Accessible-Coconut Google Group.
  See also Accessible-Coconut - The Linux Distro For Blind and Visually Impaired Users (OldTechBloke on YouTube, 35 minutes, 10.04.2021). Note that the creator of this video is not an accessibility expert and points out that his video is not a review but is more about raising awareness.
• ADRIANE - Audio Desktop Reference Implementation and Networking Environment: ADRIANE is an easy-to-use, talking desktop system with optional support for braille, which can be used entirely without vision oriented output devices.
• Vinux: Vinux is or was a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu that is optimised for the needs of blind and partially sighted users.
  Note: It is possible that Sonar and Vinux will merge and use Fedora as their starting point; that was the outcome of a meeting in early 2017. See also vinuxproject on SourceForge and Vinux: A special operating system for the blind/visually impaired (Technology for Blind on YouTube, 41 minutes, 29.07.2019).
  According to DistroWatch, Vinux is a dormant project (last verified on 09.11.2021).
• TalkingArch: a respin of the Arch Linux live iso modified to include speech and braille output for blind and visually impaired users.
  TalkingArch is (or was) a bootable CD or USB image optimised for blind users. The system started speaking at boot time. The latest release dates from October 2017. TalkingArch is not an official release of the Arch Linux project. See also The TalkingArch Blog and the TalkingArch wiki page. According to the Arch wiki, TalkingArch was discontinued in 2017 and was succeeded by Tarch, the new talking arch livecd project.
• Tarch describes itself as the new talking arch livecd project. Its latest version is Tarch 2020.02.24, released in February 2020.
• HandyLinux was a Debian-based French distribution aimed at beginners, elderly people and anyone who needs simplicity. Version 2, which was released on 16 May 2015, was based on Debian 8, although it was only available as a 32-bit version. It used Xfce as desktop environment and included the Orca screen reader (which is part of GNOMEShell), a screen magnifier, an on-screen keyboard and simplified menus.
  In July 2016, HandyLinux joined or became Debian Facile.
  As of November 2021, the website handylinux.org cannot be reached.
• The SpeakUp Project & SpeakUp: a screen review package for the Linux operating system. SpeakUp is available for Debian, Fedora and a few other distributions, but it seems that there have been no updates since 2010.
• Sonar GNU/Linux was a Linux distribution that focused on assistive technologies.
  Sonar 2016.03 was part of the Manjaro build system. It had versions with GNOME and versions with Mate. However, the ISO profiles for Sonar GNU/Linux on GitHub are now deprecated and archived.
• The accessible environment Luwrain: Luwrain is a set of software components on Java for accessible user interface construction. The source code (on GitHub) is available under the GNU General Public License version 3. See also Michael Pozhidaev's presentation Luwrain, a text-based OS for blind people at RMLl 2014, and the article Luwrain : les non-voyants ont leur système d’exploitation (by Thomas Gras, 20 June 2015).
  Version 1.2.1 of Luwrain, based on Ubuntu 16.04, was released on 22 May 2019.
• Oralux was a Linux distribution for visually impaired persons. It was based on Knoppix and included BRLTTY, Emacspeak, Yasr, Speakup and speech synthesisers for English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. However, it has not been updated since 2006 or 2007. The Oralux website can no longer be reached.
• Are there any up-to-date blind-accessible Linux distros? (6 Solutions!!) (Roel Van de Paar on YouTube, 4 minutes, 21.12.2020).
  This video just copied the answers to the Unix &Linux Stack Exchange question Are there any up-to-date blind-accessible Linux distros? and is completely inaccessible to blind users because it contains no narration except for the brief introduction.

Information and Tools for Developers

• Sharon Snider: How to Develop Accessible Linux Applications (IBM, 2002). Also available on faqs.org.
• Samuel Thibault: Accessibility Tips: Installer: about accessible installers.
• Samuel Thibault: Making Debian for everybody (Capitole du Libre on YouTube, 48 minutes, 07.01.2018; Creative Commons licence). Video of a talk at the conference Capitole du Libre in Toulouse, France, on 18.11.2018. Talk abstract: The Debian accessibility team aims at making Debian work nicely for people with disabilities. This of course means packaging accessibility-related software and bringing accessibility fixes in, but it also means integrating notions of accessibility into all stages of Debian, from d-i bootup to bug reporting. We will discuss past achievements and challenges ahead, which everybody can help with.
• Samuel Thibault: Thanks for maintaining a desktop environment. But is it accessible? (45 minutes): video recording of a presentation at the Debian Conference in August 2015. See the video archive of the Debian conference and the direct link to Samual Thibault's talk (WebM format).
• Samuel Thibault: Where does accessibility plug into the graphical desktop stack? (X.org Foundation on YouTube, 34 minutes, 12.10.2014). This video is a recording of a presentation at XDC 2014. For the transcript and slides, see Samuel Thibault - Where does accessibility plug into the graphical desktop stack?
• Fourdan, Oliver: Accessibility Features for Mutter/GNOME Shell on Wayland (GUADEC on YouTube, 21 minutes, 31.08.2019; Creative Commons Attribution licence).
  

  Historically, accessibility features in GNOME on X11 were handled by different components such as Xorg itself for keyboard accessibility, “mousetweaks” for mouse accessibility, GNOME settings daemon for locate pointer, AT-SPI registry daemon, etc.

  All these features relied on the ability to query the input devices on behalf of other clients or generate fake input events, neither of which is possible with Wayland anymore.

  The purpose of this talk is to present the current status and the technical solutions chosen in mutter/gnome-shell to make these features available on both X11 and Wayland.

• Accerciser, GNOME Hep (accessed on 24.05.2022).
  Accerciser is an interactive Python accessibility explorer. It uses the AT-SPI library to inspect, examine, and interact with widgets, allowing you to check if an application is providing correct information to assistive technologies and automated testing frameworks. Accerciser comes with a set of plugins that you can use to create custom views of accessibility information.
• GLA11Y (glade accessibility) (on Github): This tool checks accessibility of GtkBuilder .ui files produced e.g. by glade. It looks for various issues, and notably missing or bogus labelling relations. (Accessed on 24.05.2022.)
  See also Samuel Thibault's presentation Maintaining accessibility through testing? at FOSDEM 2018.
• Qt AT-SPI 2 Bridge, KDE Community Wiki.
• ATK - Accessibility Toolkit.
• Accessibility, GNOME Developer Documentation.
• Boxhall, Alice: Testing for Accessibility (Konstantin Bläsi on YouTube, 46 minutes, 13.01.2014). This is a recording of a talk at linux.conf.au 2014. Alice Boxhall is a Chromium developer at Google.
• ldtp/ldtp2: Linux Desktop Testing Project, GitHub.
• The trip of a key press event in Chromium accessibility, The web development company Lzo Media, 27.07.2020.

Other Links

• Accessibilité, Wiki ubuntu-fr, last updated on 20.12.2021.
• TheFake VIP: The State of Linux Command Line Accessibility, Blind Computing, 09.04.2018, updated on 17.04.2020.
• Operating Systems, Blind Computing (no date; accessed on 03.02.2022).
  This page contains links to accessibility revies and other accessibility-related information for various operating systems, most of which are Linux distributions.
• Prater, Devin: open source blindness, Devin's Site, 16.02.2020.
• Accessibility in Ubuntu Desktop (TALP Karnataka English Videos on YouTube, 7 minutes, 20.02.2018). This is a quick overview of the features available through the Universal Access settings.
• Emacspeak --The Complete Audio Desktop is a speech interface that allows visually impaired users to interact independently and efficiently with the computer. See also T. V. Raman's page Tips And Tricks For The Emacspeak Audio Desktop, which was last updated in 2002, and Emacspeak on Wikipedia.
• chrys87/fenrir: An TTY screenreader for Linux (GitHub repository).
• BrailleBlaster: an open-source Braille transcription program developed by the American Printing House for the Blind. According to the BrailleBlaster FAQ, the program works on Mac OS, Microsoft Windows and Linux.
• Compiz Reloaded: Accessibility Tour (Compiz Reloaded: Accessibility Tour on YouTube, 15 minutes, 08.04.2016). See also Compiz-Reloaded - TUTORIAL THREAD.
• Clark, Kendell: Accessibility in Linux is good (but could be much better), Opensource.com, 04.05.2015.
• SUE: Screenreader & Usability Extensions: beta version of a Linux screen reader that was intended as an alternative to Orca. Development halted in 2010 due to a lack of project funding.
  The release of GNOME Shell (in GNOME 3.0 in 2011) also introduced compatibility issues. Nobody seems to have explored compatibility with MATE, which forked GNOME 2. After Python 2.7 support ended in January 2020, this also became moot.
• LSR: an older screen reader for Gnome that was later replaced with Orca.
• Hartman, Sam; Lang, Mario: Accessibility and Debian (DebConf Videos on YouTube, 49 minutes, 24.11.2017). This video is a recording of a talk at the DebConf in Caceres, Spain in July 2009.
• Preferred Linux distro for people with visual impairment? This quesion was posted on Reddit in February 2019.
• Dahlke, Karl: Command Line Programs for the Blind (no date, possibly updated in 2016).
• Lee, Steve: Python Powered Accessibility (originally published in the December 2008 issue of Python Magazine (now defunct)).
  This article focuses on accessibility for Gnome applicatios.
• Saunders, Mike: Welcome gla11y, the user interface accessibility checker!, The Document Foundation Blog, 07.05.2018.
• Linux Setup of Generic Input Devices for Accessibility and Macros (Tech Tangents on YouTube, 17 minutes, 28.08.2018).
  This video shows how to set up a footpedal for use in Linux. (The applications it is used for in the video have nothing to do with accessibility but the steps for enabling and setting up the device should also work for people with disabilities.)
• Introduction to Orca Screen reader for Linux (ZAccess on YouTube, 17 minutes, 26.11.2021).
  The introduction to this video claims that Gnome is the most accessible, if not the only accessible graphical user interface in Linux. When asked whether this is really true, the video's author responded, I do stand by that statement. While there are other desktops that are better for specific users with specific disabilities (Emacspeak comes to mind here and will be the topic of a future video and I remember hearing some good things about XFCE's high contrast mode), I believe that Gnome is generally the most accessible desktop in terms of available assistive technology options (including a High Contrast mode under accessibility settings. Many desktops don't even have that accessibility settings icon in the first place. Many desktop developers also haven't included the underlying accessibility architecture necessary to run things like screen-readers and speech-to-text software in the first place. If you're thinking of a specific desktop that has better accessibility features than Gnome, including underlying accessibility hooks for screen-readers and speech-to-text software, do let me know and I'll check it out.
  The system in this video is Ubuntu 18.04.
• Screen Review with Orca Screen-Reader in Gnome Terminal (ZAccess on YouTube, 13 minutes, 09.12.2021).
  The Gnome Terminal is accessible with Orca, whereas XTerm is not.
• Barrierefreiheit im Linux-Betriebssystem Ubuntu 21.04 (Markus Lemcke on YouTube, 10 minutes, 26.08.2021).
  This video demonstrates the accessibility features in Ubuntu: Orca, on-screen keyboard, font size, high-contrast mode and stickey keys (German: Einrastfunktion). It shows that LibreOffice can be used with Orca, the on-screen keyboard and sticky keys. LibreOffice also inherits the enlarged font size setting from Gnome but does not automatically inherit the high-contrast mode. The video has subtitles in German.
• Screenreader Orca von Ubuntu im Terminal installieren (Markus Lemcke on YouTube, 3 minutes, 26.09.2021).
  This video demonstrates the installation of Orca on the command line and tests that Orca is working by letting it read output on the command line.
• Barrierefreie Stadt - ein barrierefreies Computerspiel, das auch in Ubuntu gespielt werden kann (Markus Lemcke on YouTube, 6 minutes, 21.10.2021).
  This is a Python-based game that runs on the command line.
• Orca screen reader for Linux (Jantcu on YouTube, 9 minutes, 19.07.2021).
  This video demonstrates Orca on Ubuntu with the Unity desktop. This appears to work well.
• LPIC 1 - 106.3 - Barrierefreiheit (Takiry on YouTube, 9 minutes, 05.07.2020).
  The creator of this video is not an accessibility expert. For example, “sticky keys” is translated as klebrige Tasten instead of Einrastfunktion.
• James, Simon: Top 10 Open Source Speech Recognition Systems [2022], FOSS Post, 10.01.2022.
• Top 10 Best Open Source Speech Recognition Tools for Linux, Ubuntu Pit, 30.11.2019.
• Williams, Al: Making Linux Offline Voice Recognition Easier, Hackaday, 25.09.2021.
• 14.6 Accessibility Linux (Your_IT_Free_Courses on YouTube, 3 minutes, 31.10.2021).
  A brief overview of accessibility on Linux desktops for people preparing for the CompTIA Linux+ certification exam.