[BRLTTY] Footsteps towards better accessibility in Linux

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

As the maintainer of an accessible Linux distribution I concur that being able
to navigate on the web using Firefox or Chrome from the console (not needing to
use a graphical environment) would be awesome for several blind Linux users I
communicate with: links, lynx and w3m can't be used to use features of some web
sites (often by lack of a good enough Jscript support), sometimes not even
to use the web site at all. An example I have in mind is orange.fr.

Cheers,
Didier

On 05/05/2025 12:59, kperry at blinksoft.com wrote:
> 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