Low Vision Computing

Operating System

Why Windows?

1. It's what most users are familiar with;

2. Webcam support;

3. Scanner support;

4. Support for advanced video cards;

5. Support for multiple video displays;

6. Support for multiple users and multiple levels of magnification;

7. Built in screen reader;

8. Hardware drivers for printers that the manufacturer no longer makes available;

9. Support for add-on cards for wifi, networking, USB, etc.;

10. Support for DVD and BlueRay burners;

11. Support for Games;

12. Easy access to your phone's stored photos via USB cable;

13. Included programs for photo editing, web browsing, mail, etc.;

14. Help available from knowledgable family, friends, or neighbours;

15. Lots of software;

16 You can buy a computer with Windows pre-installed.

Why Not An Apple?

1. Much smaller user base means most people aren't familiar with it;

2. Limited hardware expandability;

3. More expensive;

4. More limited software selection;

5. Far lesser game support;

6. Less support available from family, friends, and neighbours because of a smaller user base;



Why Not Linux Or BSD?

1. Hardware support is an ongoing problem (though that is now a problem with Windows 11 as well);

2. Far smaller user base;

3. Inability to run must-have software (though if you're just editing documents, doing Zoom, email, etc., it's "good enough");

4. Can't run recent games;

5. Far less support available from family, friends, and neighbours because of a very small user base;

6. In the case of Linux, far too many distributions, each with their own way of doing things and their own problems;

The situation is in flux, so the advice to use Windows is definitely going to be a problem once Windows 10 goes out of support in October of 2025.

Keeping this in mind, I've begun migrating functionality so that I can use linux as my main OS when the time comes.

Some essential programs already have Linux support:

1. Video chat: Zoom is available on Linux, Android, and Amazon Fire tablets;
2. Email: There are plenty of email programs for Linux. The Amazon Fire email app can handle more than half a dozen different email accounts; There are also numberous web-mail programs.
3. OneNote: Due to synchronization problems causing loss of data, I've switched from OneNote to just using email with multiple recipients, and doing my TODO lists as email drafts to myself on my tablet;
4. Browsers: Firefox, Chrome, Edge are all available on Linux.
5. Graphics editing: GIMP is available for both Windows and Linux;
6. Media Players: LVC is available for both Windows and Linux;
7. Document Editing: LibreOffice is available for both Windows and Linux;
8. Web, FTP, and Database Servers: Linux has far superior support running these servers on your own machine.