First and foremost, this website is barely a month old. Let that sink in. A month. Expecting comprehensive coverage of every desktop environment under the Linux sun in such a short timeframe is, frankly, ridiculous. There’s no sugarcoating it. Building a resource like this takes time, testing, and a lot of effort.

I get it. You want a community, a forum, a space where everyone can contribute and shape the content. You don’t want a personal blog; you want a collaborative platform. I understand that. And I also understand that some of you believe you could build this faster, even in a day. To that, I say: go for it! If you feel you can create a better resource, do it. Nobody is stopping you. I’m not here to compete, but to provide quality content. And quality takes time.

I prioritize thorough testing and reliable information over churning out half-baked content just to fill a void. I’m not going to rush and release something that’s buggy, insecure, or poorly documented.

Yes, I’m working on implementing a forum and other community features. But this isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. I need to ensure the platform is secure, stable, and user-friendly. I need to protect it from spam, trolls, and malicious actors.

Let me ask you this: you want a community-driven forum, where everyones voice can be heard, but are you also saying that I should not be able to stop automated bots from posting graphic pornographic content, because it is an open forum, and everyone has free will? Things like that require moderation and time. I need to build a system that balances freedom with responsibility.

Think of it like building a house. You don’t start with the roof; you lay a solid foundation. You don’t build a community overnight; you nurture it, protect it, and allow it to grow organically.

I hear you. I’m listening. I’m working on it. But I need your patience and understanding. I need you to work with me, not against me.

So, here’s my call to action: be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Instead of demanding instant gratification, offer constructive feedback, share your knowledge, and help build the community you want to see, or, frankly, go elseware, and build it yourself. But the negativity stops here!

I have a lot of testing to do, and I am doing my absolute best.

Let’s work together to make BlindLinux.com a valuable resource for everyone. Let’s build a community that’s inclusive, supportive, and informative. And let’s do it right.

Sources and related content the first time around. Will you all trust me enough to make that happen, not over night, but eventually? Will you all give me the breathing space needed to make this happen?

If not, then this isn’t the resource nor place for you, so let me not take any more of your precious time.

Honestly, it has quickly become my go-to music player. Don’t get me wrong. I use vlc quite frequently as well, but if I want to play just a simple song quicly, cmus is your friend.

First, to install on Debian based systems, you can run

sudo apt-get install cmus

And then press enter, and say yes to install.

On Fedora and other Redhat derivatives, you can run

sudo dnf install cmus

It should work similarly with pacman.

Once installed, you can launch it from a terminal simply by typing… you guessed it…

cmus

Let’s talk about how cmus is laid out.

Cmus uses a vertical menu type structure. In other words, up and down arrow keys move the highlighted focus selection up and down through a menu. Whether you’re using a text based screen reader like espeakup, or finrir, or if you are using Orca, this will read absolutely perfectly. Once on the option you require, as you’d expect, just press the enter key. Note this is the actual enter key above the right shift key. Not the one on your numpad.

At the very bottom of the screen, there is a status bar which shows output for the last action’s results taken. So, for example, let’s say that you start playing a song of your choice. That status bar at the bottom will show the last action taken. Since, in this case, the last thing was you playing X song, it will tell you that X song is playing.

However, there’s something even cooler about this status bar area. Cmus has its own set of commands you can type to execute just about everything within the program. Now before you start pannicking, let me say this… You absolutely do not! have to learn all of those commands to use this player… NOt even close! The commands are there if you need to use them, and some things do require full typed commands, but 95 percent of what you’re going to be doing does not involve needing to enter raw commands, so relax.

When you first launch the package, you will, by default, be taken to the library tree view.

I personally haven’t used this view much, but essentially, by default, it will show you all tracks in your library. Don’t worry. This isn’t all iTunes like with its library. In fact, you don’t even have to use the library at all if you’d rather not.

If you down arrow one time, you’ll be taken to the first artist in your library and shown all tracks by the artist. As you down arrow, you’ll be taken to the next artist, and of corse, up arrow takes you to the previous. To then browse all songs by an artist in this view, just hit enter on the artist.

I’m sure you’re asking, what if I had a bazillian artists in my library? I don’t wanna arrow through 80 umfzillian items just to get to “The Singing Idiots.” LOL! Just kidding on the band name. Hahaha.

But in all seriousness, don’t worry. There is a way to search within the current view. We’ll get to that a bit later in this guide, don’t fret. For now, just no that yes. It is possible.

Obviously, the first time you launch cmus, while you’ll be in the view we’ve been discussing, nothing will be there on the screen in your virtical artists list, because, well, think about it… YOu’ve not yet added anything to your library, so there won’t be anything there.

So how do we fix this? The answer is, we need to start by understanding the different views within cmux.

So once it’s launched, numbers 1 through 7 on your qwerty keyboard or rather, on your numbers row, cycle you between the 7 different views. The most common ones you’ll use are the artists view we have already been talking about. To get there, from anywhere in the app, just press numrow 1. No need to hit enter afterward.

Pressing 2 on your numrow will take you again to your library, but this shows all songs sorted by albumartist. Now yes. In the settings, you can change that if you insist. I wouldn’t, but if you really want to, you can.

3 on your numrow takes you into playlist view. Here, you’ll find, if any, all the playlists you create within the app. You’ll also find that in here is where you’ll add playlists, etcetera. You down arrow like all the other views, and when focused on the playlist you want, you hit enter to select it.

By the way, when on a playlist, if you want to delete it, just hit the lowercase letter D, as in delete.

Pressing 4 on the numrow takes you into your upcoming queue. You can indeed rearrange the tracks in the queue, but that goes beyond the scope of this guide, as this isn’t a comprehensive guide, as much as it’s just enough to get you started.

Pressing 5 on the numrow takes you to the file browser. And this, my friend, is where you’ll start after opening the application in order to either add things to your library, or to just simply play them as is.

When in this file browser view, up and down arrow keys move you between items. Pressing enter will open a directory once it’s highlighted. Keep in mind, if you are focused on an actual audio file rather than a directory, and you press enter, it’ll begin playing that track. If this happens, you can pause playback by pressing the lowercase letter C, as in Charley. To resume, just hit the letter C again.

At the very top of the file browser view, regardless what folder you are in, you’ll see always at the top of the list something with 2 periods. Most likely it’ll say dot dot. If you press enter on this, you’ll back up one level in the directory hierarchy, going to the parent directory.

I honestly don’t remember what numrow 6 does, but numrow 7 takes you into settings.

Here, you can customize any of the key bindings to suit your needs, if you don’t like something by default.

There are quite a lot of other things in here as well.

To give you a little idea of some common used shortcuts,

Lowercase A is for add. This adds a playlist when in the playlist view 3. In the browser mode 5, it adds the currently highlighted item to your library.

Capital A from any view adds the current item to the play queue.

Lowercase x, as in x-ray, from anywhere is play.

Lowercase Z, as in zulu, is previous track. This works like an old classic CD player. If you’re more than a second into the song, it returns you to the beginning of the song.

Lowercase B, as in bravo, takes you to the next track from any of the 7 views.

Dash, or rather, hyphen, call it what you will, decreases the inlined volume.

Equals, note, don’t shift it. It’s literally equals, not plus, is volume up.

Comma is rewind.

Period is fast forward.

Spacebar selects and marks an item for multi-item selection. It’s a toggle. One press marks, again, unmarks. Think of it like a checkbox.

Slash, not backslash, I’m talking just the regular slash key, puts you in search mode for the current view. Type your query, and then hit enter. Your speach might not say anything after hitting enter, so if this happens, read your current flat review line to figure out where you’re at.

Lower case N finds the next occurance.

Capital N finds the previous occurance.

Lower case S toggles on and off shuffle.

Lowercase R toggles on and off repeat.

Lower case Q quits the program.

The only other thing I want to cover briefly is command mode. Remember how I said earlier that you could type raw commands to do certain things? I’m not going to go into any of those commands. I encourage you strongly to read the manual, yes, I really said that…

man cmus

But generally speaking, any command needs to be started with a colon.

For example…

:fakecommand

After typing the command, as you’d expect, press enter.

As you can see, this thing might be command line interfaced, but man is it powerful! Personally, I love it! Yeah, it takes some learning and getting used to, especially if you’re not confident with cli based applications, but trust me. If you stick with it, it really is a pretty awesome little player.

What are DNF Groups?

Think of dnf groups as pre-packaged sets of software designed for specific purposes. (They’re often known as meta packages.) Instead of manually installing individual packages, which can be tedious and prone to errors, not to mention, you might not be aware of the names of certain packages, you can install entire groups with a single command. For example, the “Development Tools” group includes compilers, debuggers, and other essential tools for software development.

Groups vs. Individual Packages

Individual Packages: Installing packages one by one gives you granular control. However, it requires you to know the exact package names and dependencies. This can be time-consuming, especially when setting up a new system.
DNF Groups: Groups simplify the process by bundling related packages together. This is particularly beneficial for tasks like setting up a development environment, multimedia workstation, or gaming rig.
The Power of Customization: Mandatory, Default, and Optional

When you install a group, dnf by default installs the “mandatory” and “default” packages.

Mandatory: These are the essential packages required for the group to function.
Default: These are the commonly used packages within the group.
Optional: These are less frequently used packages that provide additional functionality.
You have the power to control which packages are installed:

Default Behavior (Mandatory and Default): sudo dnf group install
Mandatory, Default, and Optional: sudo dnf group install –setopt=group_package_types=mandatory,default,optional
Everything (including hidden packages): sudo dnf group install –setopt=group_package_types=mandatory,default,optional,hidden
Why “Install Everything” (Within Reason) is Often Better

In today’s world of terabyte-sized hard drives, storage space is rarely a concern for most users. Installing all the packages within a relevant group can save you time and prevent future headaches. You might discover tools you didn’t know you needed, and you won’t have to worry about missing dependencies later.

Important Caveat: Don’t Go Group-Crazy!

While installing everything within a specific group can be beneficial, it’s crucial to avoid indiscriminately installing every group. This will lead to a bloated system with unnecessary software. Carefully consider which groups align with your needs.

Discovering Available Groups: sudo dnf group list

The sudo dnf group list command displays a list of available groups. This is your gateway to exploring the vast array of software packages Fedora offers.

A Note for Blind Users: The Importance of | less

For blind users, text scrolling off the screen can be a significant obstacle. When running sudo dnf group list, the output might be, and probably will be, too long to fit on a single screen. To address this, use the | less command as a pipe:

sudo dnf group list | less
This pipes the output to the less pager, allowing you to navigate the list using the up and down arrow keys. Hit the spacebar to move to the next page, and a lowercase B, as in back/bravo to move back a page. press a lowercase Q, as in quit to return to your terminal.

Example: Installing the Sound and Video Group

Let’s say you want to install all the packages related to sound and video. You can use the following command:

Bash

sudo dnf group install sound-and-video –setopt=group_package_types=mandatory,default,optional
This command will install all the mandatory, default, and optional packages within the “Sound and Video” group.

In Conclusion

DNF groups are a powerful feature that simplifies software installation on Fedora Workstation. By understanding the different package types and using the | less command, you can efficiently manage your software, regardless of your visual abilities. So, explore the world of DNF groups and unlock the full potential of your Fedora system!

Let me illustrate with a common scenario: I’m in Thunderbird, trying to compose an email. I have word echo enabled in Orca, expecting to hear each word spoken as I type each word followed by the spacebar. However, instead of the expected feedback, silence. Orca seems completely unresponsive, despite being correctly configured within its settings. It’s as if the keystrokes are disappearing into a void.

The root of the issue, as far as I can determine, lies in how Orca interacts with these Snap-packaged applications. Orca word echo relies on receiving specific events, such as word delimiter events, to understand the text being entered. In the case of Thunderbird (and other Snap-packaged Mozilla apps), these events often fail to reach Orca. The result is that Orca doesn’t “see” the key input, and therefore cannot provide the necessary feedback.

My current theory, though not definitively proven, points to Snap’s sandboxing as a potential culprit. Snaps are designed to run in a confined environment, isolated from the rest of the system. This sandboxing might be interfering with Orca’s ability to communicate with the Snap version of Thunderbird, preventing the necessary events from being passed along. It’s important to emphasize that this is a working theory, and further investigation is needed to confirm the exact cause. However, until a better explanation arises, this seems to be the most likely reason.

The problem is, on most modern Debian based systems like Ubuntu, Mozilla, by default, installs the Snap version of Thunderbird, even if you use apt to get the package. If you don’t have snap installed, well, tough! It will install it as a dependency.

Below, I will include the steps on a Debian-based system such as Debian, Ubuntu, etcetera to properly remove the Snap version of Thunderbird and install the version from the official Mozilla PPA. This should resolve the Orca issues. Please be aware that this process will revert any custom settings you have made to Thunderbird. It is crucial to back up your Thunderbird profiles before proceeding if you wish to preserve these settings. I wouldn’t normally advise doing this, but in this case, it’s the only way so far I’ve been able to hack around this problem. Note that this bug has been reported to Joni on the Github page, so she is definitely aware of it. There isn’t however much she can do at this given time given the unique criteria causing this problem in the first place.

You can follow these steps if you want to try fixing this problem. Note that while this worked on my end, I can’t be held responsible for any data loss or strange behavior on your system, if something goes awri. I’m giving you these instructions with the understanding that they worked for me, but you do this at your own risk.

First, add the PPA by Mozilla Team.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa

Then, copy and paste the following code in a terminal in one go (don’t copy-paste line by line) to prioritize the apt version of thunderbird over the snap version.

echo ‘
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: thunderbird
Pin: version 2:1snap*
Pin-Priority: -1
‘ | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/thunderbird

Next, remove the snap version of thunderbird.

sudo snap remove thunderbird

Install Thunderbird with apt.

sudo apt install thunderbird

To ensure that unattended upgrades do not reinstall the snap version of Thunderbird, enter the following command.

echo ‘Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins:: “LP-PPA-mozillateam:${distro_codename}”;’ | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/51unattended-upgrades-thunderbird

To undo these changes
Remove the PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:mozillateam/ppa

Remove the apt pin.

sudo rm -rf /etc/apt/preferences.d/thunderbird

Remove the apt version and reinstall the snap one.

sudo apt remove thunderbird && sudo snap install thunderbird

Again, I want to re-emphesize that you soly do this at your own disgression/risk.

In this guide, I will show you the basics to get you up and running as quickly as possible. I hope this helps!