[BRLTTY] Footsteps towards better accessibility in Linux

[kperry at blinksoft.com]

I don't think your right on console being left behind.  There are many new
shells. And AI shells are on the way.  I know for a fact power system admins
in the sighted world don't use the GUI.   Not only that but If someone
wanted to spend a little time a console interface for a headless chrome or
firefox could be made.  I am working on one for another device right now.
We used to have a headless interface to the web browser on the old Icon and
Mobile manager.  It still works to this day even though the firefox we used
is so old it won't even compile on a new system today.  I built a start on
this for another device today.  Maybe I will just make it portable to work
on all consoles that have chrome installed on the desktop and then it will
work fine with brlty.  I am not a Brltty user to the extent that I can use
it but I am a speech user by default but I understand the need for a better
web interface.  Is anyone interested in something like I am talking about?

-----Original Message-----
From: BRLTTY <brltty-bounces at brltty.app> On Behalf Of Aura Kelloniemi
Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2025 6:31 AM
To: Informal discussion between users and developers of BRLTTY.
<brltty at brltty.app>
Subject: Re: [BRLTTY] Footsteps towards better accessibility in Linux

Hi Adrian,

On 2025-04-01 at 12:03 +0200, "Adrian P. van Bloois" <adrian at pa0rda.nl>
wrote:
 > WIth brltty we are perfectly capable of running a linux system. I have
done  > that professionally for 40 years and still do that for myself and as
a  > volonteer for the animal ambulaaance.

That is very respectable. I'd like to clarify the timing though that Linux
kernel was first released in 1991 and BRLTTY was not initially available.

 > I dont need a window manager, what I need is a better browser than lynx.

My initiative is actually not about deprecating Linux console support in
BRLTTY, not at all. My questions are more about how to handle the situation
where Linux console is getting deprecated by the kernel developers. The
console interface has not seen any major development for a decade at least.

I don't want to force anyone to move away from our beloved Linux VTs. My
initiative is about what is the best way to have braille accessibility in
the future.

I myself am not a fan of GUIs and my initiatie does not need to imply that
in the future we would need to use anything but completely text-based
interfaces.
But the question about the backedn needs to be resolved.

Linux console nowadays does not draw to VGA text memory segment, but Linux
itself maintains a graphical frame buffer on which it renders the console.
So actually all of us are using a graphical display already. Using Wayland
as a backedn does not change this very much. This is a technical question,
but it has many usability implications as I detailed in my original message.

I want the future to be text too, but I want to raise discussion about how
we should react to the current state of the Linux/FOSS ecosystem.

--
Aura
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