Ubuntu Accessibility Guide

Ubuntu 6.06 provides assistive technology support in the basic boot and install, with further packages available in the repositories. This guide does not provide a complete listing of all the available features, but is a practical guide to getting started with Ubuntu using it's default assistive technology features.

Booting the Live CD

The standard Ubuntu Live CD can accommodate users with a range of disabilities using different boot options. This section explains how to activate these features on the Live CD.

Insert the Live CD and boot the machine to use Ubuntu Live. The CD will start with a boot screen giving various options for starting the system including choice of language, special hardware settings and accessibility settings. Pressing F5 produces a menu of accessibility options with the following choices:

• None
• Lesser Visual Impairment
• Moderate Visual Impairment
• Blindness
• Minor Motor Difficulties
• Motor Difficulties - pointing devices

The options are accessed by using the arrow keys and pressing Enter. The default option is 'None'. So to access the 'Moderate Visual Impairment' option, press F5, the down arrow twice and Enter. Press Enter again to boot the CD with this option.

The system will now require 2-3 minutes to start from the CD. The assistive technology option selected above will start with the system.

Installing

Installation can be performed with the basic installation CD, or more commonly, starting the Live CD and running the graphical install program. This second approach allows you to test that the software works well with your hardware before installing. In both cases, the assistive technology applications are installed by default, but only the live CD option has assistive technology support during the install process at the moment.

Known limitations

Live CD boot menu: The Live CD boot system does not have ideal usability but we hope that this detailed and frank documentation will help. We will strive to improve this phase in the next release with better visibility and audio feedback.

Installation: The combination of the Gnopernicus screen reader and the Ubiquity installer does currently not produce speech output.