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Types of Blind User
There are two categories of blind linux user, the first are those who can see enough to use the screen with the aid of character enhancement packages. The second are users who can only use linux through speech or Braille output devices. Like all linux users blind users use both X Windows and the console. There are a number of packages, which are used to access both these environments.
Access to the Console
The main package that users who can see the screen use to access the console is SVGATextMode, which can magnify console characters. A user can configure this program to produce characters of almost any size.
Users who depend on speech use a program called EmaxSpeak, which is a talking version of the Emax word processor. However it is not limited to just word processing, Emax has almost become a shell in its own right, (All command line access in linux is done through programs called shells).
Access to X Windows
X Windows users who can see the screen can use a range of simple techniques understand what is going on. These range from changing the font size to specialised programs like xzoom or the BlindPenguin.
There are also a number of speech synthesiser packages, which can talk to most modern sound cards and translate the GUI of X Windows into speech.
Linux v Microsoft Windows
There are a number of very good commercial packages available for all of the MS Windows operating systems. Microsoft has also put some accessibility features into the Windows 9X and these are said to have improved dramatically for Windows 2000. However Windows has been around for about 16 years and most of the good accessibility features that are needed by blind users only available in commercial products.
Linux has been around about 9 years, in that time a range of free products have been created which are close to the standards of the commercial products available for MS Windows, and they far exceed the standards of the accessibility aids which are currently available free with the MS Windows operating systems.
Neither Linux nor MS Windows have anything like total accessibility built into the operating system.