I am not blind myself, but I have been using Linux for over 20 years and followed a few blind people who got into it. If your friend wants to go the Linux rout

I am not blind myself, but I have been using Linux for over 20 years and followed a few blind people who got into it. If your friend wants to go the Linux route, I would suggest to pick a distribution with a blind community and if possible blind developers. Arch Linux would probably work, and I am pretty sure Debian too since a recent Debian Project Leader (Sam Hartman) is blind. There is also a Slackware derivative called Slint. Regarding tools I have seen blind people use different things. Some use the CLI exclusively with a braille terminal and/or a tool like Speakup, others use GUIs like Orca. There is a mailing list dedicated to blind Linux users: https://listman.redhat.com/archives/blinux-list/ https://listman.redhat.com/archives/blinux-list/ Note: I'm not suggesting your friend picks Linux, it looks like accessibility on Windows is better, but I know if I was in their situation I would probably still pick Linux because I already have experience with it and using an OS without a GUI. Best of luck to you and your friend!