MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]

[Jude DaShiell]

gnome uses too much memory especially on older hardware to the point of 
keyboard latency; newer systems with more memory don't have this problem 
and mate has a smaller memory footprint.  I have sonar-mate running fine 
but run with difficulty using gnome on a 1GB ram machine.  Also, all 
desktop instances would be more useable if those were tohave available a 
package like xdummy for installation when no screen is found connected 
to a computer.  This way blind people could use linux without a display 
just as they can with windows 7 and above.  Had that been the case, I 
could have migrated to a larger memory model machine and run it until I 
could get a dvi cable and connect the screen.

On Sun, 22 May 2016, Samuel Thibault wrote:

> Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 06:13:55
> From: Samuel Thibault <sthibault at debian.org>
> To: debian-accessibility at lists.debian.org
> Cc: pkg-gnome-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org
> Subject: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian
>      Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
> Resent-Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 10:14:26 +0000 (UTC)
> Resent-From: debian-accessibility at lists.debian.org
> 
> Hello,
>
> Cyril Brulebois, on Sat 21 May 2016 23:13:17 +0200, wrote:
>>  * brltty:
>>     - Install MATE desktop by default when brltty is used in d-i.
>>  * espeakup:
>>     - Install MATE desktop by default when espeakup is used in d-i.
>
> This change has triggered discussion on the debian-boot IRC channel. To
> summarize, gnome people are surprised that MATE would be preferred by
> blind people and wonder what they need to improve in gnome. I answered
> that it was more a problem of general trend towards visual ways of
> using the desktop, which can't be made really usable, but that's only a
> sketchy answer, they need more precise examples.
>
> Could blind people here comment on this: why you don't use gnome and
> prefer MATE instead? (or the converse of course, the idea is not to
> blame gnome, we just want to select by default what is best for users,
> according to their situation. Ideally we'd just say "pick whatever,
> they're all good").
>
> Samuel
>
>

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