Looking for an Accessible Mac-Compatible Linux Distro

Help
1

Hi,

I have a T2 Mac Mini, and am looking for a compatible, accessible, and usable operating system for it.

I have an older version of MacOS, but up-to-date versions of MacOS set off my migraines. I think it’s because they’ve dropped support for 1080p displays, and made text too faint and gray on these displays.

I also have Linux Mint installed on it. Among other issues, I can’t get the built-in wifi working, and think I need a T2 version instead. https://wiki.t2linux.org/

I also tried Fedora T2, and I could somehow get the built-in wifi working.

Gentoo T2 is supposed to be very customizable. I think it should make it easier to try different desktop environments.

Screens

I was able to block most animation in both Linux Mint and Fedora T2. The settings were scattered between Effects, Keyboard, and Accessibility.

I encountered uncomfortably faint font rendering in both systems, and migraine-inducing font rendering in Firefox on Linux Mint. I was able to more-or-less fix Firefox by editing my user css and adding a 1px blur behind all text.

I can only get Linux Mint to use certain Colorsync profiles. I would like a way to switch to grayscale, adjust gamma, etc. I am not interested in proper calibration here, I am interested in different contrast options.

Menus

Both Linux Mint and Fedora rely on one big menu in the corner, and many, many, many sub-menus. I’d much prefer to have more smaller menus. I know there are apps that can add a more reasonable set, but defaulting to a more reasonable set would be better.

Scrolling

Linux Mint made it easy to set good, wide, always-visible scrollbars. Fedora did not. I think there may be a workaround using its theme css. I would also like grab scroll options.

Keyboards

Both Linux Mint and Fedora rely in the control key, which is way off in the corner. I’d like to be able to use command and fn keys for the same combos. Neither Linux Mint nor Fedora show active modifiers on the screen, which makes it much harder to use Sticky Keys or figure out why everything is suddenly going haywire.

Linux Mint only supports 4 keyboard layouts at a time. It also makes it inodinately hard to type hwair and thorn.

Software

In Fedora, Firefox kept freezing. I was unable to install Mozregression to test. In Linux Mint, I had an awful time with the font rendering.

I haven’t tested Thunderbird in either system, and don’t want to lose incoming emails because they reached the wrong copy.

1 Like
2

P.S. I can’t edit a long post, because standard interface, but I can’t figure out how to install Gentoo from here: GitHub - t2linux/T2-Gentoo-Kernel at Mainline

1 Like
3

I tried the Gentoo live usb, but it defaults to KDE, which is full of animation, without any quick way to disable al the animation.

1 Like
4

I don’t know if this list will help, but here is an article on linux distros that are supposed to be good for accessibility (though the main focus seems to be on people who are visually impaired?).

And here is a reddit discussion, but I don’t know if it will focus on the exact set of parameters you’ll need, but it could give you ideas on where to start, maybe?

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/tph771/what_are_the_most_accessible_and/

And then there is this site, which might have some solutions for you? But again, the main focus seems to be on visual impairment, so maybe not?

https://zendalona.com/accessible-coconut/

Let me know if any of these pages are problematic for you to view and I’ll re-post a non-paywall version (though I’ve noticed those work best with adblockers, etc).

5

Thanks.

Since I haven’t been able to set everything up in Mint, I think I need to try a T2-compatible distro.

Of the T2-compatible distros, Fedora mostly worked.

The Ubuntu and Gentoo live usbs were too inaccessible to try. Arch and EndeavorOS are for experts. Tails is completely unsuitable. Manjaro has a busy and inaccessible website, and the T2 installer documentation notes:

This is the last Manjaro-T2 release and no installation support will provided starting from January 1st, 2023.
Enjoy this while Manjaro breaks itself down!

1 Like
6

I hope it helps… I’m not a techy (that’s the role of my better half who is a programmer), so I just googled to see what came up about accessible linux distros. Lots of them seem to be geared towards vision impairment, but perhaps there are some good things in there for you.

Oh, and I did run across a thing about Arch Linux - apparently, they have a version that helps ramp you up to using Arch?

https://www.makeuseof.com/learn-arch-with-arcolinux/

I don’t know about accessibility, but it looks like someone made this specifically for people who want to use arch, but aren’t expert level linux-guru-types (like, you know, much of the human race!).

Let us know if any of this works out for you!

7

I know part of the problem with the T2 Macs is its sever security requirements can make it difficult. If there’s a distro that isn’t inherently T2 compatible, is it an option to run full screen in a virtual machine like Parallels, QEMU, or VirtualBox an option? That way you could in theory try pretty much any Linux distro.

You can also run various Linux window managers like Gnome and others on macOS through MacPorts.

Sorry if these are dumb ideas :slight_smile:

2 Likes
8

I tried VirtualBox for distro testing. It didn’t work that well. I can’t use Parallels because it requires newer versions of MacOS.

9

I also tried installing Gnome through Macports.

After 6 hours of Macports installing various dependencies: Error: Processing of port gnome failed

I just used sudo port uninstalll leaves to get rid of the extras.

2 Likes