Kelly, I am probably not expert enough to answer this, although since my only bias here is anti-windows, maybe I have something to say. Oh, another bias, I never, well almost never, use the most popular anything, biggest is almost always lousy. I'd love it if Linux were a viable alternative for blind folks. I heartilly approve of the open source concept and the result that there is no monopoly in linux. However so far as I can see to this point, the command line interface to linux is pretty weird. Yes it is command line driven, and therefore keeps from losing us in the "positional user interface" (pronounced POOIE) which Windows really is. But the commands for various programs are pretty difficult and about as anti intuitive as you can get. If I were 10 years younger and less tired of operating systems, all of them, than I am I'd have a Linux box on my desk now and probably be a beta tester for Speakup. I may yet do that. If I were to advise a younger blind person who wanted to be in the software or hitech game as a professional, I'd say definitely learn and use Linux wherever you can. As for home users, I am not so sure. If you love to fiddle with computers then you are a prime candidate for Linux. However if you can't stand the time to learn two operating systems, then it is a hard call. Since the anti trust case against Microsoft has been setteled with no more than a polite slap on the wrist, "THEY" will continue being the big bad guys on the block and therefore most likely dominating the industry. Unless this changes, there is pressure to conform and use that which everyone else uses. This is even more strong on blind folks as many of us must use what our "agencies" insist we use. On the linux side, there can be no real doubt that Linux is much the better, faster, more stable, operating system With access software like Speakup actually built in to the Kernel of the system, it is much less likely that the system, or perticular applications, can play nasty tricks on one. Therefore it is less likely we will need to have Linux access systems specially coddled for each and every single new application we want to use. All this has been said before, I'd love it if things come out better than i really think they will. However most of the development tools I now use are not yet available in Linux, so I am pretty much stuck. Now, did I say anything here at all? <GRIN> Tom Fowle Embedded Systems Developer/ Rehab engineer Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute San Francisco, [log in to unmask] Net-Tamer V 1.12.0 - Registered VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List. To join or leave the list, send a message to [log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations. VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html