Vinux 3.2 Is Based on Ubuntu 11.04

Vinux 3.2 has been released. The latest version of the Linux distro aimed at the visually impaired is based on the most recent Ubuntu 11.04. It also comes with recent versions of Orca, Speech-Dispatcher and the other specialized tools.

"I am happy to announce the release of Vinux 3.2 based on Ubuntu 11.04. This is a cutting edge release featuring the latest versions of Orca (3.1.2-xdesktop) and Speech-Dispatcher (0.8~2784+13~maverick1) from the daily build repos," Tony Sales announced.

Vinux 3.2 decided to stick to the classic Gnome 2 desktop, instead of the custom-built Unity for Ubuntu. However, while Gnome 2 is the default, users can also switch to Unity if they want the latest desktop innovations and their computers can handle it.

"This release includes the Pico TTS voices in addition to Espeak, the Epiphany Internet Browser and built-in keybindings to quickly organize multiple windows with x-tile. It also features some new packages including Orca-Teacher, Talking Clock and CDBurn," The announcement also said.

A new usability feature is a system bell notification when the boot process reaches the Isolinux screen. This enables users to select between the available boot options. There is a new option which forces the entire operating system to run in the system's memory.

Vinux 3.2 also comes with a number of command line tools which aid with accessibility even without a graphical desktop. The CD edition includes: sox gpm screen, splitvt, figlet, cmatrix, txt2html, html2text, pdf2svg, pstotext, units mc, trash-cli, vrms, dict, sc, htop, linuxinfo, w3m, elinks-lite, urlview, finch, axel, calcurse, tdl.

Vinux 3.2 is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions as a CD ISO and a larger DVD-size image. For most users, the CD version should be enough, but, due to size constraints, doesn't include the LibreOffice suite. The DVD version comes with LibreOffice as well as proprietary multimedia codecs to get everything working out of the box.

Vinux 3.2 is available for download here on Softpedia.