I am encountering a serious accessibility problem with the Ubuntu installer in Ubuntu 25.10 (and likely 24.10) when using the Orca screen reader.
Description of the Issue
When using the new Flutter-based Ubuntu installer with Orca enabled, many of the dropdown menus are not read aloud at all in the manual/custom disk partitioning step. For example:
Filesystem type selector (ext4, xfs, etc.)
Mount point selector (/ , /home, swap, etc.)
Size unit selector (MB, GB, etc.)
Disk selection dropdowns
Orca does not announce the current value, nor the list of options, and does not speak anything while navigating through these controls. This prevents blind or visually impaired users from safely and independently performing manual partitioning during installation, making this part of the installer effectively unusable.
Existing Report (Canonical GitHub)
This issue has already been reported in the canonical/ubuntu-desktop-provision GitHub repository, under issue #1246, and it is still open without fixes yet.
My Questions
Has anyone found any workaround or partial solution for this problem (e.g., alternative installer mode, command-line partitioning during install, or using a different accessibility approach)?
Does anyone know if this is being actively worked on by the Ubuntu developers?
Is there a way to help move this forward (e.g., submitting additional test data, or testing proposed patches)?
I’d really appreciate any insights or suggestions. This is a critical accessibility issue for many users who rely on Orca.
Ubuntu Desktop and most of the flavors (all except three) use the ubuntu-desktop-installer, thus I'd expect the same behavior for all.
FYI: I have no idea if the other three (using calamares) have that issue, but it wouldn't surprise me, as I'm not aware of it being tested (sorry).
If the issue occurred in 24.10; it's moot as that release is EOL & thus will never be fixed; likewise 25.04 too now.
FYI: I gather your github report mentioned 24.10 due to a dropdown limitation?? If so I'd try and amend that entry, OR write [a comment] after it that stresses it relates to 25.10, as a bug report about Ubuntu 24.10 could very possibly be ignored as no new 24.10 ISOs will be created, thus fixing a 24.10 bug makes no sense & is a waste of resources.
You do mention 25.10 later on in the report, but I fear some may stop reading when they see 24.10.
If you want to gain attention, maybe doing a test with a resolute (26.04) daily or snapshot and confirming the issue is still there (on the next release, or the release currently in development), may get some resources allocated to fix it for the next LTS (that fix is ~easily backported to currently supported releases anyway, as installer is packages as snap & doesn't require new ISOs to be released). Recording it on the ISO QA tracker (currently possible on resolute) also means it goes to some [regular QA/tracked] reports (it'll need a launchpad report linked to your github bug report; as the ISO QA tracker only allows linking to launchpad).
I have no knowledge as for fixes/workarounds though sorry.
Thank you very much for the detailed and helpful explanation, I really appreciate it.
You are absolutely right regarding the risk of the issue being overlooked due to referencing an EOL release like 24.10. The reason I selected 24.10 was simply because 25.10 was not available in the dropdown at the time, but I understand now how this could negatively affect visibility.
Based on your advice, I will proceed immediately to test the installer using a Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute) daily build to verify whether the issue still exists in the currently developing release.
I will then update the GitHub report with my findings so the issue is clearly tied to the upcoming LTS and receives the appropriate attention.
Thanks again for taking the time to explain this and for the valuable guidance.
I wanted to share an update on this issue and the steps I’ve taken since opening this topic.
I have now confirmed that the problem is still present in Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute) daily build. When using the Flutter-based Ubuntu installer with Orca enabled, dropdown menus (especially during manual/custom disk partitioning) are not readable. Orca announces only the word “alert” instead of the control name or selected value, which makes manual partitioning unusable for blind users.
Based on the suggestions here, I have proceeded with the full official reporting process:
The issue has been tested and confirmed on Ubuntu 26.04 daily.
