First-time #Mint #Penguin Here!

[BlindHedgehogStew]

I sincerely appologize for the long read coming up
(as our attention span collectively shortens into a #CokeMentosMoment
-
(Reader Discretion Advised):...

So this is literally my very first time in #penguin territory after 28 years on a platform of empty promises , uh, #Redmond , anyone?I have to first describe my somewhat unique situation before I can go into the specs of how I got here.
As per the situation, I'm totally blind since birth, so the most important piece of software is actually a piece of 'critical spyware' in the sense that it reads the code from various objects to 'draw' my desktop, then speak the contents in focus to me via speech.
That's what a #ScreenReader does.
In the Windows world, this would have been either #Narrator , #JawsForWindows , or #NVDA from #NVAccess .
On Windows since 2006 I've proudly used NVDA to traverse the increasingly evil Microsoft (now hardened) interface.
I'm more of a pro-sumer than consumer, so on Windows I used #reaper the digital audio workstation alongside an absolute beast of a freeware+open-source software synthesizer called #SurgeXT from the #SurgeSynthTeam !
And per proper hardware control I got the M-Audio Oxygen 61 MKV MIDI controller last Christmas (No, not the Wham song) to play DAW hosts live in realtime.
Per audio editing, #GoldWave was always my main squeeze - from the stupid little edits to extreme audio handling sessions
(my favorite audio passion of late (say, the past 4 or so years) is impulse response recording).
On a Dell Latitude 5500 acquired about 3 years ago from my brother's friend,
it's handled everything I can throw at it.
It initially came with 8 gb of RAM, but since updated to 32 gb to future-proof looking forward.
I had to retire the battery because when I first got the Latitude, the touch pad + a part of the keyboard were swollen.
So I've been on AC power per the past 3 years.
Now to the nightmare scenario which I quietly saw coming...
I should preface this by saying I Am One of Those that Does Want to See what's happening under the hood,
so just prior to Wednesday, February 25th,
just 3 days shy of #OperationEpicFury ,
I had an aggressively tweaked Windows session
(complete with only a local profile on Windows 11 Professional) and a heap of registry files + batch+command+PowerShell scripts to totally de-damn the junk, block telemetry addresses+ports,
unhide all 177 'hidden' UltimatePerformance power plan settings;
Even a customized PS1 prompt with my user name@host name; date;time:
Then my command input
followed by the output on the next line.
Had everything all set and ready to fly.
But, as is standard practice in the Windows world, I shut down just before going to bed
(almost wish I hadn't...), because:...
Thursday, February 26th, -
After powering the Dell just to check EMail,
I got an awkward message on my screen:
"No boot device detected"
I just 'quiet'ly 'splash'ed it off, knowing the switch was nigh.
Next week, around Friday March 6th, another friend of my brother introduces me to Linux Mint, but not a fully installed copy.
It was a 'live' image that I somehow could not install a full copy of Mint to my SSD
(quintessentially stateless computing at its peak).
I somehow survived with that for 9 days till a bad #Florida #Thunderstorm took my power away!
Now that Mint was gone, it twas time to see the evil 'snap philosophy' of 'humanity towards others'.
While Ubuntu Noble Numbat was kinda cool,
#Orca the #ScreenReader had a very difficult time with it,
considering the Wayland experience + non-native snap apps throughout the interface!
Twas about 3 weeks ago I'd finally had enough...
I remembered people talking about the no-nonsense nature of the Mate desktop,
so off to #Gemini I go to talk;
He helped me prepare a 16-gb GigaStone USB flash drive - to go from being 'inhumane towards others' to 'from freedom came elegance'
(complete with #Wilma (Mint 22 LTS)!
He (Gemini) directed me as to how to fully format and nuke the Ubuntu image once and for all!
Then, burn the Mint+Mate image to the GigaStone!
The #GigaStone is now officially a - #FlintStone !
And - after the successful installation of Linux Mint + Mate with 0 sighted assistance
(which is what the modern world silently endorseth),
all is well - and - yall just gotta new penguin in your corner!

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

Welcome to the bunch! You'd like it here!

 

[Perpetual Padawan]

Hi! Learn at your own pace. I found that by keeping a journal of what I did and what resulted to be very helpful as I learn.

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome t the forums
Sit back, kick off shoes, grab a beer and enjoy the ride

 

[beanburrito]

Welcome, BlindHedgehogStew.

 

[kc1di]

Hello @BlindHedgehogStew
Welcome to the Linux.org forum, enjoy!

 

[BlindHedgehogStew]

I'm only 103 days old in Linux,
yet feel this insurmountable pressure that society's expecting me to know what all 30,000,000 lines of kernel code do within the next 28 years...
That puts me all the way at roughly Tuesday, June 30th, 2054!

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

I'm only 103 days old in Linux,
yet feel this insurmountable pressure that society's expecting me to know what all 30,000,000 lines of kernel code do within the next 28 years...
That puts me all the way at roughly Tuesday, June 30th, 2054!

Hey, Don't sweat it! Learn at your own pace. We all don't know everything!
We just bounce Ideas off each other until we get it working.
So, Don't worry!
I myself am somewhat newer as well!

 

[BlindHedgehogStew]

Welcome t the forums
Sit back, kick off shoes, grab a beer and enjoy the ride

So what are the various stata of each person for;
I.E., the Credits count + Reaction Score?

Also found my 'house' already;
#Mint + the #Mate desktop
-
feels more like #WinXP / #Win7 per its usage,
but that's a beautiful thing.
If I want to drop in any custom stuff later on,
I'll do that at my accord, not a corporation's mandate;
Then again, being blind since birth means everything is done polarly opposite to everyone else - per not using a mouse.
Keyboard commands are very paramount in the way I work;
(The Less I Move a Mouse, the More Productive I Am)!
Small side note;
Born on Friday, June 30th, 1978 at 6:55 A.M. at only 12 weeks,
weighing 2 pounds 4 ounces.

 

[Brickwizard]

So what are the various stata of each person for;
I.E., the Credits count + Reaction Score?

ok, so some of the options are legacy from whomever wrote the forum software and do not mean much.
Post count speaks for itself .. it's your total number of post
Reaction score is accumulative of the number of likes your post receive
Credit counts only goes to 113 and is one of the legacy items
credits again is a legacy item it rates your post for quality and quantity originally I understand it was designed for prize givings but again we don't use it

 

[Perpetual Padawan]

I'm only 103 days old in Linux,
yet feel this insurmountable pressure that society's expecting me to know what all 30,000,000 lines of kernel code do within the next 28 years...
That puts me all the way at roughly Tuesday, June 30th, 2054!

If you tell anyone you use Linux, then they assume you are a super-duper-techno-wizard with mad techno-skills! The fun part then is telling them you're not - that it's pretty much point-and-click (in Mint, most other mainline desktop distros). In computer class my professor - knowing I'm a Linux user, asked, "So, Robbie, who invented the original point-and-click interface?" My answer: "Colt firearms, sir."

 

[BlindHedgehogStew]

I'm only 103 days old in Linux,
yet feel this insurmountable pressure that society's expecting me to know what all 30,000,000 lines of kernel code do within the next 28 years...
That puts me all the way at roughly Tuesday, June 30th, 2054!

Speaking of knowing what things do, ...
I gotta bitta a first-time gift that #GoogleGemini very carefully helped me craft:
If you want a 'slightly more readable' Terminal prompt,
then you'll maybe want this in your arsenal in your ~/.bashrc file:
(I'm just gonna let the work speak for itself - copy between < and >);
<
export PS1="\[\e[1;36m\]~\$; \u @ \h; \$(date +'%A %B %-d, %y'); @ \$(date +'%-I:%M %p' | sed 's/AM/A. M./;s/PM/P. M./')\[\e[0m\]\n\w\n"
Then, do a source ~/.bashrc and watch the magic from here forward!
BTW, Do Grab a Copy of this
(If per deploying it to multiple user accounts).
Hope this helps someone:
Jason Bratcher
from a very hot
Valrico, Florida!

 

[BlindHedgehogStew]

Just curious;
I hope I'm not 'seeing' things,
but both Smilax and Beanburrito have no posted topics, lol?

 

[Brickwizard]

@BlindHedgehogStew

both members you mention have made over 100 post, just not in this thread

 

[BlindHedgehogStew]

Welcome t the forums
Sit back, kick off shoes, grab a beer and enjoy the ride

I kinda wish I had a beer or coffee here;
But tea's my official weakness, lol. Never really cared for beer/coffee.
Say, any reccommendations as to who I should follow on the forums?
Some uh yall got some nifty names, rofl!
Now on Linux, if apps Do Not Use Standard GTK/QT Controls/label the said controls meaningfully decent, Orca + Odilia will have, a rather rough, time handling them.
Hence why I'm a little nervous about trying new GUI apps.
Yet my work on Windows mostly was a GUI enjoyment,
so finding apps that honor the tradition will go very far for me.
BTW, just also wanted to mention I'm near tears writing this post,
just because the corporate Redmond idiots decide they know more than I do,
yet I'm the one editing a .py file for an NVDA add-on to make something behave the way I, not the author, wanted.

AS per audio editors,I've tried Audacity + Tenacity + MhWaveEdit + GWaveEdit + OceanAudio;
Yet the UI's all come up as being inaccessible to Orca.
I know everyone talks about SoX, but I'm more of a taskmaster in the sense of leaving an editor opened where I can edit all the audio I want - to my specs, save, then move onto the next audio file.
Kinda like how GoldWave was in Windows.
I do Not Say it Lightly that I'm Very Dangerous in the audio editing department if given exactly the right tools for torture!

 

[Brickwizard]

Say, any reccommendations as to who I should follow on the forums?
Some uh yall got some nifty names,

yep there are some doozies, who you choose to follow will depend on your particular interest, we have members whose interest spread in all directions we have system engineers, software engineers, those who specialise in hardware Gamers, and a plethora of plain good experienced users, of all ages spread across all continents, we have two things in common, the love of Linux and none of us claim to be experts, if you spend every day for the rest of your life you will never know everything, Linux is organic it grows and changes every day,

 

[BlindHedgehogStew]

yep there are some doozies, who you choose to follow will depend on your particular interest, we have members whose interest spread in all directions we have system engineers, software engineers, those who specialise in hardware Gamers, and a plethora of plain good experienced users, of all ages spread across all continents, we have two things in common, the love of Linux and none of us claim to be experts, if you spend every day for the rest of your life you will never know everything, Linux is organic it grows and changes every day,

Then in that case,
I need to get familiar with app developers Who Correctly Talk to the DBus/ATSPI so that screen readers like Orca and Odilia Can Fully tell me what's going on in an interface,
instead of saying 'drawing area', as DeadBeeF does...
Programs like Audacious get the Orca/Odilia handshakes mostly correct enough to navigate preferences + make the changes I want.
If only there were More Media Players Like Audacious,...
And definitely while we're here,
totally tone down the ui!
You really don't have to have thousands of bouncing lights in a visualization while a song is playing;
(That just means extra useless CPU cycles unwell spent)!

 

[BlindHedgehogStew]

Then in that case,
I need to get familiar with app developers Who Correctly Talk to the DBus/ATSPI so that screen readers like Orca and Odilia Can Fully tell me what's going on in an interface,
instead of saying 'drawing area', as DeadBeeF does...
Programs like Audacious get the Orca/Odilia handshakes mostly correct enough to navigate preferences + make the changes I want.
If only there were More Media Players Like Audacious,...
And definitely while we're here,
totally tone down the ui!
You really don't have to have thousands of bouncing lights in a visualization while a song is playing;
(That just means extra useless CPU cycles unwell spent)!

As per media players, you probably guessed I'm more of a #FooBar2000ist, just because of how that just purred on Windows for - years!

 

[Brickwizard]

have you seen https://snapcraft.io/foobar2000

 

[BlindHedgehogStew]

have you seen https://snapcraft.io/foobar2000

I'm a smidge skep to grab the snap;
Just because the Mint+Mate philosophy actively discourage snap-based apps (like Ubuntu's offerrings).
Also, 'snap'ped apps tend to be 'sandboxes' to Orca, hushing their output so Orca never knows what's going on inside them.
Keep in mind that for all intent and purpose, Orca is a blind person's 'spyware', but instead of hijacking source code, it actually 'reads' the code to tell me what's in focus where I'm located.