2025-08-08 00:00:00

I use Arch, btw. And I even adhere to the principles of FOSS; but I ain’t an evangelist. Because GNU/Linux tooling for the disabled especially when using Wayland is so debilitating that you should seriously lobby to keep X11 around, and if X11 dies, then I actively encourage you to return to Windows or macOS.

Wayland is a nice protocol, but the implementations are dog crap just like X11 historically was. So when you need a screen reader or need some on-screen keyboard, Wayland compositors will just, mysteriously, block it all. Wayland developers tend to ignore the disabled since they don’t care about 0.01% of their user base.

Or perhaps they do, but they lack funds.

But as long as that can’t be satisfied, I can’t see Linux being embraced by governments who have legal requirements to accommodate disabled employees. Governments like Linux for everything related to data sovereignty, control, security, and audits, but they don’t like when they can’t fulfill their basic requirements. Without a government tasting the rainbow Linux, then you can expect Windows to continue dominating there, and thereby create a massive pool of people (who are gov’t employees) refusing to use anything but Windows.

It’s quite a terrible loop. If you are disabled then I encourage you to pester Wayland devs (at the very least), at best to fund them, and at worst, switch away from distros that hate you for using X11 for your accessibility (like Fedora, please don’t use them), use something like Ubuntu or hell, even Arch. Or, even if these don’t work, then I’d send you to Windows.