hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux, to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

Hi Kendell,

Welcome to Windows, and to the NVDA list!

CDex is a popular CD ripper: http://cdex.mu/  It looks up freedb and others (you can set the one you want).  I must admit I always just rip to MP3 so I haven't looked into other formats with it.  Just looking at the features, you can set it to use OGG, FLAC, AAC, WMA and other formats.

I'm not as familiar with downloading videos, or torrent programs I'm afraid.

I tend to steer clear of driver downloaders - you just don't know what they are downloading and I think most of them cause more problems than they solve.  Mostly I let Windows manage drivers and it does do this a lot more autonomously than it used to.  Sometimes it is worth double checking you are using the manufacturer's driver, though, particularly for audio and video drivers and in that case, I usually go to the manufacturer's website.

I'm not sure about that file error you're getting.  AMD will be your processor and sys means it's a system file, possibly a driver, as you seem to have guessed, but beyond that, I'm not sure.  Is anything happening immediately prior to it crashing?  I did a google search on the filename and got nothing (5 unrelated results) so whatever it is, it's evidently not overly common.

Speaking of the Chrome browser, you'll actually find that it works fairly well with NVDA if you do choose to install it.  The popular browser with NVDA has traditionally been Firefox, but it can be worth keeping Chrome around just for the odd website that works better with one than the other.  Internet Explorer still works and still comes with Windows, even Windows 10.  If you are on Windows 10, we do support the new browser "Edge", though personally, I'd still stick with one of the others for the most part.

If you are after a word processor that isn't Microsoft Office (MS Office works well with NVDA, but you asked about free), Jarte is a standalone one: http://www.jarte.com/  otherwise, LibreOffice is a full office suite: http://libreoffice.org/

If you used Audacity for audio editing on Linux, you'll find it is available for Windows as well: http://www.audacityteam.org/

I can't think of what else to recommend off the top of my head, but all the best with your migration and do let us know if you encounter anything else you need help or a recommendation on.

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 2:04 PM, coffeekingms@... <coffeekingms@...> wrote:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux,  to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why  and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds  of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess 

hi

Thanks for all your suggestions. I just installed the cdex software using the link you provided. As a warning to all of you, if you do install this software, you might need sighted help to uncheck the option to install recommended software, because there seems to be no accssible way to decline it. If you do install the cd ripper as it wants, you'll get the following additional software

avast antivirus

bite fence antimalware

chromium

advanced pc care

stack player

and your homepage will be set to yahoo web search in your default browser. I'm still puzzling over how to remove avast, since I can't seem to click or simulate a left click on the  uninstall button, NVDA can't seem to route the mouse pointer to the  uninstall button using the caps lock plus kp devide shortcut, but the others were easily removed. Despite all of this, I like cdex. I don't like the sneaky bundling of software, and I'm rather shocked that open source software would stoop to such a tactic. I'm not  annoyed at anyone hear though, I want to make that clear but at the extra installations. I am going to install chrome and try it out, since I did like chromium in the few minutes I played around with it.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

Hi Kendell,

Welcome to Windows, and to the NVDA list!

CDex is a popular CD ripper: http://cdex.mu/  It looks up freedb and others (you can set the one you want).  I must admit I always just rip to MP3 so I haven't looked into other formats with it.  Just looking at the features, you can set it to use OGG, FLAC, AAC, WMA and other formats.

I'm not as familiar with downloading videos, or torrent programs I'm afraid.

I tend to steer clear of driver downloaders - you just don't know what they are downloading and I think most of them cause more problems than they solve.  Mostly I let Windows manage drivers and it does do this a lot more autonomously than it used to.  Sometimes it is worth double checking you are using the manufacturer's driver, though, particularly for audio and video drivers and in that case, I usually go to the manufacturer's website.

I'm not sure about that file error you're getting.  AMD will be your processor and sys means it's a system file, possibly a driver, as you seem to have guessed, but beyond that, I'm not sure.  Is anything happening immediately prior to it crashing?  I did a google search on the filename and got nothing (5 unrelated results) so whatever it is, it's evidently not overly common.

Speaking of the Chrome browser, you'll actually find that it works fairly well with NVDA if you do choose to install it.  The popular browser with NVDA has traditionally been Firefox, but it can be worth keeping Chrome around just for the odd website that works better with one than the other.  Internet Explorer still works and still comes with Windows, even Windows 10.  If you are on Windows 10, we do support the new browser "Edge", though personally, I'd still stick with one of the others for the most part.

If you are after a word processor that isn't Microsoft Office (MS Office works well with NVDA, but you asked about free), Jarte is a standalone one: http://www.jarte.com/  otherwise, LibreOffice is a full office suite: http://libreoffice.org/

If you used Audacity for audio editing on Linux, you'll find it is available for Windows as well: http://www.audacityteam.org/

I can't think of what else to recommend off the top of my head, but all the best with your migration and do let us know if you encounter anything else you need help or a recommendation on.

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 2:04 PM, coffeekingms@... <coffeekingms@...> wrote:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux,  to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why  and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds  of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess 

Hi,

If you were much of a command-line Linux user, you might want to check
out Windows 10 bash:

http://www.howtogeek.com/249966/how-to-install-and-use-the-linux-bash-shell-on-windows-10/



YoutubeDLG is what I use for my videos. You can set some options in
preferences according to whether you want to convert to audio and keep
the video. You can also put custom command line parameters into its
configuration which will get passed to youtube-dl directly.
Personally, I keep the "convert to audio" checkbox unchecked, and add
a -x to the command line parameters so that the original format gets
preserved in the case of aac or opus audio. This depends entirely on
whether you want to keep the video though.

CDex is definitely good, though I don't know if it's updated for
Windows 10. It was the first ripper I ever used and worked until I
decided to just use GoldWave's internal converter.

For torrenting, I use UTorrent, but a much older version (3.2.1). I
don't know off hand where one can download this, so if you trust a
google search more than a random stranger on a mailing list, feel free
to find your own download. However, this is my copy and it's running
well on two of my machines:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1689280/software/utorrent.exe

A few people talked about driveragent being good, but it's not free.
However, I was told it was 30 to 40 dollars for up to 10 machines. If
that's your thing, give it a try. I'm also told the free version will
tell you which drivers you need, but will not download them
automatically. Don't quote me on either of those things.

I'm sure people out here have good suggestions of audio converters. I
don't personally have any, as I once again use GoldWave's batch
converter most of the time. If I don't, I use the one built into
Foobar2000, which also works well in certain cases.


Good luck. Feel free to share any discoveries you make as well.


Simon





On 2017-02-14 19:04, coffeekingms@... wrote:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux, to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a
list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

hi

Thanks for all your suggestions. I just installed the cdex software using the link you provided. As a warning to all of you, if you do install this software, you might need sighted help to uncheck the option to install recommended software, because there seems to be no accssible way to decline it. If you do install the cd ripper as it wants, you'll get the following additional software

avast antivirus

bite fence antimalware

chromium

advanced pc care

stack player

and your homepage will be set to yahoo web search in your default browser. I'm still puzzling over how to remove avast, since I can't seem to click or simulate a left click on the  uninstall button, NVDA can't seem to route the mouse pointer to the  uninstall button using the caps lock plus kp devide shortcut, but the others were easily removed. Despite all of this, I like cdex. I don't like the sneaky bundling of software, and I'm rather shocked that open source software would stoop to such a tactic. I'm not  annoyed at anyone hear though, I want to make that clear but at the extra installations. I am going to install chrome and try it out, since I did like chromium in the few minutes I played around with it.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

Hi Kendell,

 

Welcome to Windows, and to the NVDA list!

 

CDex is a popular CD ripper: http://cdex.mu/  It looks up freedb and others (you can set the one you want).  I must admit I always just rip to MP3 so I haven't looked into other formats with it.  Just looking at the features, you can set it to use OGG, FLAC, AAC, WMA and other formats.

 

I'm not as familiar with downloading videos, or torrent programs I'm afraid.

 

I tend to steer clear of driver downloaders - you just don't know what they are downloading and I think most of them cause more problems than they solve.  Mostly I let Windows manage drivers and it does do this a lot more autonomously than it used to.  Sometimes it is worth double checking you are using the manufacturer's driver, though, particularly for audio and video drivers and in that case, I usually go to the manufacturer's website.

 

I'm not sure about that file error you're getting.  AMD will be your processor and sys means it's a system file, possibly a driver, as you seem to have guessed, but beyond that, I'm not sure.  Is anything happening immediately prior to it crashing?  I did a google search on the filename and got nothing (5 unrelated results) so whatever it is, it's evidently not overly common.

 

Speaking of the Chrome browser, you'll actually find that it works fairly well with NVDA if you do choose to install it.  The popular browser with NVDA has traditionally been Firefox, but it can be worth keeping Chrome around just for the odd website that works better with one than the other.  Internet Explorer still works and still comes with Windows, even Windows 10.  If you are on Windows 10, we do support the new browser "Edge", though personally, I'd still stick with one of the others for the most part.

 

If you are after a word processor that isn't Microsoft Office (MS Office works well with NVDA, but you asked about free), Jarte is a standalone one: http://www.jarte.com/  otherwise, LibreOffice is a full office suite: http://libreoffice.org/

 

If you used Audacity for audio editing on Linux, you'll find it is available for Windows as well: http://www.audacityteam.org/

 

I can't think of what else to recommend off the top of my head, but all the best with your migration and do let us know if you encounter anything else you need help or a recommendation on.

Kind regards

 

Quentin.

 

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 2:04 PM, coffeekingms@... <coffeekingms@...> wrote:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux,  to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why  and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds  of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

 

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

 

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess 

It appears you want to convert mp3 files into other formats. If you convert mp3 into other compressed formats such as ogg, you are compressing one compressed format with another. You will loose sound quality if you do so.

Gene
----- Original Message -----

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux, to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

Eek!  Sorry!  I haven't installed from scratch for awhile clearly and didn't remember that or I definitely would have warned you!

Quentin.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 3:51 PM, coffeekingms@... <coffeekingms@...> wrote:

hi

Thanks for all your suggestions. I just installed the cdex software using the link you provided. As a warning to all of you, if you do install this software, you might need sighted help to uncheck the option to install recommended software, because there seems to be no accssible way to decline it. If you do install the cd ripper as it wants, you'll get the following additional software

avast antivirus

bite fence antimalware

chromium

advanced pc care

stack player

and your homepage will be set to yahoo web search in your default browser. I'm still puzzling over how to remove avast, since I can't seem to click or simulate a left click on the  uninstall button, NVDA can't seem to route the mouse pointer to the  uninstall button using the caps lock plus kp devide shortcut, but the others were easily removed. Despite all of this, I like cdex. I don't like the sneaky bundling of software, and I'm rather shocked that open source software would stoop to such a tactic. I'm not  annoyed at anyone hear though, I want to make that clear but at the extra installations. I am going to install chrome and try it out, since I did like chromium in the few minutes I played around with it.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

On 2/14/2017 9:32 PM, Quentin Christensen wrote:

Hi Kendell,

Welcome to Windows, and to the NVDA list!

CDex is a popular CD ripper: http://cdex.mu/  It looks up freedb and others (you can set the one you want).  I must admit I always just rip to MP3 so I haven't looked into other formats with it.  Just looking at the features, you can set it to use OGG, FLAC, AAC, WMA and other formats.

I'm not as familiar with downloading videos, or torrent programs I'm afraid.

I tend to steer clear of driver downloaders - you just don't know what they are downloading and I think most of them cause more problems than they solve.  Mostly I let Windows manage drivers and it does do this a lot more autonomously than it used to.  Sometimes it is worth double checking you are using the manufacturer's driver, though, particularly for audio and video drivers and in that case, I usually go to the manufacturer's website.

I'm not sure about that file error you're getting.  AMD will be your processor and sys means it's a system file, possibly a driver, as you seem to have guessed, but beyond that, I'm not sure.  Is anything happening immediately prior to it crashing?  I did a google search on the filename and got nothing (5 unrelated results) so whatever it is, it's evidently not overly common.

Speaking of the Chrome browser, you'll actually find that it works fairly well with NVDA if you do choose to install it.  The popular browser with NVDA has traditionally been Firefox, but it can be worth keeping Chrome around just for the odd website that works better with one than the other.  Internet Explorer still works and still comes with Windows, even Windows 10.  If you are on Windows 10, we do support the new browser "Edge", though personally, I'd still stick with one of the others for the most part.

If you are after a word processor that isn't Microsoft Office (MS Office works well with NVDA, but you asked about free), Jarte is a standalone one: http://www.jarte.com/  otherwise, LibreOffice is a full office suite: http://libreoffice.org/

If you used Audacity for audio editing on Linux, you'll find it is available for Windows as well: http://www.audacityteam.org/

I can't think of what else to recommend off the top of my head, but all the best with your migration and do let us know if you encounter anything else you need help or a recommendation on.

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 2:04 PM, coffeekingms@... <coffeekingms@...> wrote:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux,  to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why  and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds  of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess 

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess 

Simon,

Re CDex,

The latest stable version is 1.82, released on 21st December 2016.  It definitely works on Windows 10 although it still has much the same interface it has had for about as long as I've used it.

Regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 3:18 PM, Simon Jaeger <simon@...> wrote:

Hi,

If you were much of a command-line Linux user, you might want to check out Windows 10 bash:

http://www.howtogeek.com/249966/how-to-install-and-use-the-linux-bash-shell-on-windows-10/


YoutubeDLG is what I use for my videos. You can set some options in preferences according to whether you want to convert to audio and keep the video. You can also put custom command line parameters into its configuration which will get passed to youtube-dl directly. Personally, I keep the "convert to audio" checkbox unchecked, and add a -x to the command line parameters so that the original format gets preserved in the case of aac or opus audio. This depends entirely on whether you want to keep the video though.

CDex is definitely good, though I don't know if it's updated for Windows 10. It was the first ripper I ever used and worked until I decided to just use GoldWave's internal converter.

For torrenting, I use UTorrent, but a much older version (3.2.1). I don't know off hand where one can download this, so if you trust a google search more than a random stranger on a mailing list, feel free to find your own download. However, this is my copy and it's running well on two of my machines:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1689280/software/utorrent.exe

A few people talked about driveragent being good, but it's not free. However, I was told it was 30 to 40 dollars for up to 10 machines. If that's your thing, give it a try. I'm also told the free version will tell you which drivers you need, but will not download them automatically. Don't quote me on either of those things.

I'm sure people out here have good suggestions of audio converters. I don't personally have any, as I once again use GoldWave's batch converter most of the time. If I don't, I use the one built into Foobar2000, which also works well in certain cases.


Good luck. Feel free to share any discoveries you make as well.


Simon

On 2017-02-14 19:04, coffeekingms@... wrote:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux,  to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why  and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds  of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess 

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux, to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

Hi Kendell,

Sorry to hear about your resignation from Sonar. Hope the situation improves over time.

For ripping CDs, you can also use Foobar 2000, which is a music player (though it extracts audio from videos, too).

There is a CLI version of youtube-dl that works on Windows too (standalone .exe file).

For installing software with no other stuff, I suggest you take a look at ninite.org , which will install the software you choose from their selection of <100 programs. To update it, you just rerun the installer. They even offer a section for accessible software, and offer to install NVDA.

Also, you may like chocolatey.org . Chocolatey is a open source (though it also offers pro versions)command-line package manager for Windows. Be aware though: like in Linux, sometimes the software you install with it may not be up to date (the NVDA there is from 2014 for example). But it does an excellent job of not installing additional things.

For Portable Applications, the most popular one is Portable Apps. You can either download the platform and "install" the portable software you want from there, or download the standalone portable apps.


Regards,

Sukil



El 15/02/2017 a las 4:04, coffeekingms@... escribió:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux, to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

how do we know ninite.org is not spiware?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Sukil Etxenike via Groups.Io" <sukiletxe@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 4:34 AM
Subject: Re: [nvda] new to windows, need help with software selections

Hi Kendell,

Sorry to hear about your resignation from Sonar. Hope the situation improves over time.

For ripping CDs, you can also use Foobar 2000, which is a music player (though it extracts audio from videos, too).

There is a CLI version of youtube-dl that works on Windows too (standalone .exe file).

For installing software with no other stuff, I suggest you take a look at ninite.org , which will install the software you choose from their selection of <100 programs. To update it, you just rerun the installer. They even offer a section for accessible software, and offer to install NVDA.

Also, you may like chocolatey.org . Chocolatey is a open source (though it also offers pro versions)command-line package manager for Windows. Be aware though: like in Linux, sometimes the software you install with it may not be up to date (the NVDA there is from 2014 for example). But it does an excellent job of not installing additional things.

For Portable Applications, the most popular one is Portable Apps. You can either download the platform and "install" the portable software you want from there, or download the standalone portable apps.


Regards,

Sukil



El 15/02/2017 a las 4:04, coffeekingms@... escribió:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux, to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

Hi Kendell,

Sorry to hear about your resignation from Sonar. Hope the situation
improves over time.

For ripping CDs, you can also use Foobar 2000, which is a music player
(though it extracts audio from videos, too).

There is a CLI version of youtube-dl that works on Windows too
(standalone .exe file).

For installing software with no other stuff, I suggest you take a look
at ninite.org , which will install the software you choose from their
selection of <100 programs. To update it, you just rerun the
installer. They even offer a section for accessible software, and
offer to install NVDA.

Also, you may like chocolatey.org . Chocolatey is a open source
(though it also offers pro versions)command-line package manager for
Windows. Be aware though: like in Linux, sometimes the software you
install with it may not be up to date (the NVDA there is from 2014 for
example). But it does an excellent job of not installing additional
things.

For Portable Applications, the most popular one is Portable Apps. You
can either download the platform and "install" the portable software
you want from there, or download the standalone portable apps.


Regards,

Sukil



El 15/02/2017 a las 4:04, coffeekingms@... escribió:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux, to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a
list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

hi

Thanks for all your suggestions. I just installed the cdex software using the link you provided. As a warning to all of you, if you do install this software, you might need sighted help to uncheck the option to install recommended software, because there seems to be no accssible way to decline it. If you do install the cd ripper as it wants, you'll get the following additional software

avast antivirus

bite fence antimalware

chromium

advanced pc care

stack player

and your homepage will be set to yahoo web search in your default browser. I'm still puzzling over how to remove avast, since I can't seem to click or simulate a left click on the  uninstall button, NVDA can't seem to route the mouse pointer to the  uninstall button using the caps lock plus kp devide shortcut, but the others were easily removed. Despite all of this, I like cdex. I don't like the sneaky bundling of software, and I'm rather shocked that open source software would stoop to such a tactic. I'm not  annoyed at anyone hear though, I want to make that clear but at the extra installations. I am going to install chrome and try it out, since I did like chromium in the few minutes I played around with it.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

On 2/14/2017 9:32 PM, Quentin Christensen wrote:

Hi Kendell,

Welcome to Windows, and to the NVDA list!

CDex is a popular CD ripper: http://cdex.mu/  It looks up freedb and others (you can set the one you want).  I must admit I always just rip to MP3 so I haven't looked into other formats with it.  Just looking at the features, you can set it to use OGG, FLAC, AAC, WMA and other formats.

I'm not as familiar with downloading videos, or torrent programs I'm afraid.

I tend to steer clear of driver downloaders - you just don't know what they are downloading and I think most of them cause more problems than they solve.  Mostly I let Windows manage drivers and it does do this a lot more autonomously than it used to.  Sometimes it is worth double checking you are using the manufacturer's driver, though, particularly for audio and video drivers and in that case, I usually go to the manufacturer's website.

I'm not sure about that file error you're getting.  AMD will be your processor and sys means it's a system file, possibly a driver, as you seem to have guessed, but beyond that, I'm not sure.  Is anything happening immediately prior to it crashing?  I did a google search on the filename and got nothing (5 unrelated results) so whatever it is, it's evidently not overly common.

Speaking of the Chrome browser, you'll actually find that it works fairly well with NVDA if you do choose to install it.  The popular browser with NVDA has traditionally been Firefox, but it can be worth keeping Chrome around just for the odd website that works better with one than the other.  Internet Explorer still works and still comes with Windows, even Windows 10.  If you are on Windows 10, we do support the new browser "Edge", though personally, I'd still stick with one of the others for the most part.

If you are after a word processor that isn't Microsoft Office (MS Office works well with NVDA, but you asked about free), Jarte is a standalone one: http://www.jarte.com/  otherwise, LibreOffice is a full office suite: http://libreoffice.org/

If you used Audacity for audio editing on Linux, you'll find it is available for Windows as well: http://www.audacityteam.org/

I can't think of what else to recommend off the top of my head, but all the best with your migration and do let us know if you encounter anything else you need help or a recommendation on.

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 2:04 PM, coffeekingms@... <coffeekingms@...> wrote:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux,  to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why  and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds  of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess 

hi

No worries, I removed all the unwanted bits. On the bright side, I absolutely love chrome! I haven't been this excited about a browser since I switched away from internet explorer and to firefox, about a year before I switched to linux this was. It's blindingly fast, even on sites that would slow firefox to a crawl. I tested on best buy and hsn, two of the worst sites with firefox and it worked like a charm. The only caveat is that if I ever do install linux again, I won't be able to use it because the linux screen reader, called orca, won't read chrome or chromium. Joanmeri diggs says she can't add it until google makes some changes to make it possible, although NVDA managed somehow. Don't tell her that though, I did that once and her reply was something like fine then, use windows lol.

Thanks   

Kendell Clark

Eek!  Sorry!  I haven't installed from scratch for awhile clearly and didn't remember that or I definitely would have warned you!

Quentin.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 3:51 PM, coffeekingms@... <coffeekingms@...> wrote:

hi

Thanks for all your suggestions. I just installed the cdex software using the link you provided. As a warning to all of you, if you do install this software, you might need sighted help to uncheck the option to install recommended software, because there seems to be no accssible way to decline it. If you do install the cd ripper as it wants, you'll get the following additional software

avast antivirus

bite fence antimalware

chromium

advanced pc care

stack player

and your homepage will be set to yahoo web search in your default browser. I'm still puzzling over how to remove avast, since I can't seem to click or simulate a left click on the  uninstall button, NVDA can't seem to route the mouse pointer to the  uninstall button using the caps lock plus kp devide shortcut, but the others were easily removed. Despite all of this, I like cdex. I don't like the sneaky bundling of software, and I'm rather shocked that open source software would stoop to such a tactic. I'm not  annoyed at anyone hear though, I want to make that clear but at the extra installations. I am going to install chrome and try it out, since I did like chromium in the few minutes I played around with it.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

On 2/14/2017 9:32 PM, Quentin Christensen wrote:

Hi Kendell,

Welcome to Windows, and to the NVDA list!

CDex is a popular CD ripper: http://cdex.mu/  It looks up freedb and others (you can set the one you want).  I must admit I always just rip to MP3 so I haven't looked into other formats with it.  Just looking at the features, you can set it to use OGG, FLAC, AAC, WMA and other formats.

I'm not as familiar with downloading videos, or torrent programs I'm afraid.

I tend to steer clear of driver downloaders - you just don't know what they are downloading and I think most of them cause more problems than they solve.  Mostly I let Windows manage drivers and it does do this a lot more autonomously than it used to.  Sometimes it is worth double checking you are using the manufacturer's driver, though, particularly for audio and video drivers and in that case, I usually go to the manufacturer's website.

I'm not sure about that file error you're getting.  AMD will be your processor and sys means it's a system file, possibly a driver, as you seem to have guessed, but beyond that, I'm not sure.  Is anything happening immediately prior to it crashing?  I did a google search on the filename and got nothing (5 unrelated results) so whatever it is, it's evidently not overly common.

Speaking of the Chrome browser, you'll actually find that it works fairly well with NVDA if you do choose to install it.  The popular browser with NVDA has traditionally been Firefox, but it can be worth keeping Chrome around just for the odd website that works better with one than the other.  Internet Explorer still works and still comes with Windows, even Windows 10.  If you are on Windows 10, we do support the new browser "Edge", though personally, I'd still stick with one of the others for the most part.

If you are after a word processor that isn't Microsoft Office (MS Office works well with NVDA, but you asked about free), Jarte is a standalone one: http://www.jarte.com/  otherwise, LibreOffice is a full office suite: http://libreoffice.org/

If you used Audacity for audio editing on Linux, you'll find it is available for Windows as well: http://www.audacityteam.org/

I can't think of what else to recommend off the top of my head, but all the best with your migration and do let us know if you encounter anything else you need help or a recommendation on.

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 2:04 PM, coffeekingms@... <coffeekingms@...> wrote:

hi all

I'm a bit ashamed to say this, but I've just switched from linux,
specifically sonar gnu linux,  to windows 10 full time. There are many
reasons why  and I won't go into them hear since this is the wrong list,
but the windows blind community is just friendlier and much much less
prone to judge people based on what software they want to use, what
speech voice they want to use and so on. I was hoping you guys could
point me to some free as in price, and open source if possible, software
to do the things I've gotten used to doing in linux. I'll provide a list.

A cd ripper, preferably one that can look up info on cd databases, and
if such a thing exists, one that can look up data on audiobook cd's,
since the ones available for linux can't. It would be nice if it could
rip to opus or ogg vorbis files, preferably both, since I don't care for
mp3 and use free to use media formats like ogg or opus for everything.
Something that can download videos from youtube, entire playlists if
possible. I've found youtube dl gui for this, but it leaves the video
and audio tracks separate, instead of combining them so I have to
manuallt delete them. An audio converter, so I can convert mp3, m4b, etc
files into the formats I prefer to use. I've come across format factory
and already wrote about it hear, but it doesn't seem to handle opus so I
may need to use something else. I've just discovered kodi, the htpc
software. Can it handle using services such as spotify, pandora and
last.fm? I don't use any of these yet, but I'd like to start, assuming
spotify and pandora are still free to use. Accessible torrent software.
I've been usint q bittorrent, and it is usable but not very accessible.
I want torrent software for legal things, not the pirate bay and such.
Even though I'm no longer using sonar I still want to support it's
torrent seeds, as well as other linux distro torrents such as vinux and
fedora. Is there a good free program to keep drivers up to date? If
these are still needed. My computer is experiencing frequent bugcheck
screens from something called amdkfb.sys, and I thought maybe a free
driver updater would download an updated driver that would fix it.
Something that doesn't nag you to upgrade to a pro version would be
nice, and that can be run portable would be even better, but I don't
want to be picky. I'm only asking for all of these instead of doing my
own research because I'm frequently lead around in circles. Sites that
say a piece of software is free, when what they mean is free but comes
with extra stuff, free trial, or not free at all and they want you to
pay for it. Driver updaters that aren't accessible and often install
extras, such as pc care, pc cleaners, and the chrome browser. Are there
good ways of avoiding these kinds  of things? I'm new to windows after
being in linux for five years so I might as well be a first time windows
user. Thanks for any help, I'll try not to ask for this much help again.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess 

--

Quentin Christensen
Training Material Developer

Basic Training for NVDA & Microsoft Word with NVDA E-Books now available: http://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Ph +61 7 3149 3306 

www.nvaccess.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess 
Twitter: @NVAccess