Re: Want to try a GUI. Which one is best?

[Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list@redhat.com>]

Hello,

Thanks for all your suggestions. I have Debian Buster, command-line only. I may just wait until the next Debian testing is available and see if they include Mate. 
I 
will be using brltty, and no speech.

This leaves one concern in my original message for discussion. I want Debian to boot into the command-line, but I want to have a command or script for starting 
the GUI when I need it.

Thanks,
John J. Boyer <john.boyer@abilitiessoft.org>

On Sun, Mar 01, 2020 at 01:54:07PM +0000, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
> Best I can tell, Mate 1.24 is currently available in both Debian
> Testing(aka Bull's Eye which will eventually become Debian 11) and
> Debian Unstable(aka Sid).
> 
> It's unlikely something as big as a new version of Mate will make it
> into Debian 9 aka Stretch or oldstable or Debian 10 aka Buster or
> Stable as Debian priortizes stability over cutting edge, though it
> might make it into backports(more likely for Buster than for Stretch,
> but I confess to not knowing how long Debian supports Oldstable when a
> new Stable is released).
> 
> That said, while Orca, the primary, and possibly only, graphical
> screen reader for Linux, is officially part of Gnome and persumably
> optimized for that environment, and probably works so well with Mate
> due to Mate's origins as a Gnome fork(as I understand it, Gnome 3
> brought many controversial changes to look and feel and Mate startedas
> a way to keep the Gnome 2.x look and feel in an updated environment),
> Orca should, in theory, be able to work with any GTK-based Desktop
> Environment or Window Manager, though anything QT-based(KDE chief
> among them) is currently a bit hit or miss.
> 
> Gnome or Mate might be the best options for a beginner as they're the
> most well documented DEs for using them with Orca, but Knoppix using a
> combination of LXDE and Orca when launching a full Desktop seems to
> work well, and I've heard people have had success with the ratpoison
> window Manager.
> 
> 
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-- 
John J. Boyer
Email: john.boyer@abilitiessoft.org
website: http://www.abilitiessoft.org
Status: Company dissolved but website and email addresses  live.
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Mission: developing assistive technology software and providing STEM services 
        that are available at no cost