The Vinux Project is a distribution of Linux based on the Ubuntu Distribution providing a user experience with accessibility in mind. The Vinux distribution features magnification software and a high contrast desktop by default. The distribution also features Text to Speech, Braille support and many other features. You can download Vinux at the project website: http://vinuxproject.org/
The easiest way to experience Vinux is to download the live CD which can be burned to a 750MB CD and booted. It is a fully functional operating system for you to play around with. If you like what you see you can partition your drive and run a dual boot computer but if you do not want to do this you can create a virtual machine and use Vinux that way.
I personally use VirtualBox for most of my virtual machines. It is free and can be downloaded here: https://www.virtualbox.org/
The VirtualBox GUI can be difficult to use with some screen readers but the great thing about VirtualBox is that you can create a VM directly from the command line.
I realise this is a short post and contains basic information but if there is any interest in running Vinux I will be happy to answer any questions or creating more blog posts on the topic.
My wife and I are both sight impaired, extremely now both in the count fingers range now, although both of us had slightly better in our younger years in the 20/200, 20/300 range, just as we got older our vision levels slowly got worse over time.
Anyway, about Vinux, I’ve been a long time Fedora Fan, but from what I understand, Vinux uses a very old version of Fedora, so I haven’t been all that enthusiastic about trying it. but anythings better then the main Fedora distro I guess. My wife doesn’t get much into that, but I’ve been an IT major all my life, but I never finished my Computer Science degree because I had issues seeing the blackboard in college, and since my local college didn’t tell me anything about notetakers or anything of the sort, I just had to accept repeated failing grades. Now after going thru the graduation ceremony 8 times with some classes failing 5-6 times in a row, even if I did get straight A’s from here on out with accommodations, my GPA is so low I’ll never qualify for graduation unless I attend another college, which at 43 I’m not real reluctant to start over, so I gave up on it, but 43 years Computer Science major you still have the interest, just had to accept getting placed in other places like retail. Your right about being in limbo people understand 20/20 and total blindness, but to explain anywhere between count fingers and 20/200, or even 20/100 for that matter, people just don’t get. Most of the time I just let people think I’m totally blind its better then getting no help at all, cuz if they think you have some sight even a tiny bit they treat you like you have 20/20, so its always frustrating. even job hunting because job coaches don’t get why you can be an IT major but not work a cash register at walmart or meijers, and even harder to explain why you can’t install zoomtext on a cash register is even more frustrating. and then when I ask for help people say advocte for yourself. Well you try but they still don’t get it…. I face that every day of my life in frustration.
The other thing, I find, is even the totally blind treat us like we have 20/20, because even the totally blind don’t understand partial sight, so I get accused of “faking it” alot. People see me with my cane walking around the store and they tell their totally blind friends oh he’s getting around just fine, so he must be faking it. argh. lol
If you are interested in getting some certification and you need some blindness related help you can always check out the Cisco Academy For the Vision Impaired. http://www.ciscovision.org/. They have everything from Audio Editing to Programming. Give it a shot man, its NEVER too late to better yourself. Let me know if this helps!