this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
199 points (98.1% liked)
Linux
49475 readers
651 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
last time I checked, blind users could not even install any mainstream distro anymore, because they all switched to wayland, and that broke screen readers in the installer.
Yeah. I'm sad to say that, about a year ago, I switched back to macOS because it handles accessibility waaaaay better. And I don't even use screen readers. It sounds like their situation is even worse :/
I just need the ability to easily zoom in and out using Super+scroll up/down (without causing performance issues or visual jank) and trackpad gestures that aren't extremely limited. Granted, both of these things may be more of a DE thing, but wherever the issue lies, I would like them fixed.
KDE let's you do that first one, though it's ctrl+super. It's one of my favourite lesser known features.
linux developers only care about shit they themselves care about, powertripping and some stupid principles they made up, not about making a usable environment for everyone
I disagree with this characterization of Linux devs. They're just people. I'm sure there are some shitheads out there, but I don't think it's anymore the case than with any other sample of software devs.
I think the more likely reason that accessibility technology is an afterthought in Linux is because it's an afterthought in pretty much all software, which is a bad thing, but I haven't seen them be elitist about accessibility.
Some of the problem really is just that Linux graphical capabilities have been challenging enough enough that doing some of the extra demanding things that various access capabilities require weren't possible until recently (and some of them still aren't possible).
It's elitism as per usual, i daily drive Linux for 9 years already and always point this out, if we want the year of Linux truly come, then elitism must be stopped as majority of people won't come to Linux if it's inconvenient to them and majority of people not a techy guys, Linux guys want people to like Linux but don't want Linux to BECOME likeable to majority and want it to persist as elite subculture, that's the MAIN paradox of Linux community and all other problems like systemd vs other init, x11 vs Wayland, tiling wm vs full DE, distro wars, all stem from this same reason, Linux users wanna FEEL elite but want mass adoption and mass recognition of Linux while it's not yet accessible to everyone or even becoming less accessible like in this case we're discussing
of course it's 'elitism' and not just a bunch of people volunteering to code shit that's interesting/relevant for them.
To provide 'non-elitist' desktop experience people need to sit down and fix bug backlog for hardware that's nowhere around them, prioritize features that are relevant to users (even if they are absolutely ass to work on) and etc, etc, etc. You know how it's called? A job.
Aight, then why hyping forcefully deprecating fully working code base that provided more accessibility and robustness (x11)
Because under the hood x11 code is such a hacky mess the developers found it easier to start from scratch than add new features like HDR and VRR to x11.
If new features don't matter to you, there's still plenty of distros and DE's and WM's that ship x11 and will continue for a very long time.
X11 versus Wayland isn't some kind of holy war; Wayland was specifically designed as a successor protocol to the largely cobbled-together X and is objectively superior to it in most ways outside of accessibility.
Right, as I've and many people here said, wayland is still not FULLY completed for AVERAGE user and said average user is not going to code patches, he just going to walk away from wayland and from Linux, and this is pushing the year of desktop Linux farther and farther from us
When is the last time you tried a Wayland DE? I can't speak to them all, but Plasma for one has been in really good shape for basically everything a typical user might want to do with it for around a year now.