Talking Debian

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

Firstly, you can't telnet from one operating system to another on the same
computer as both would need to be running which is not possible.  Well
perhaps it would be if windows was running under VM ware but that's not the
situation currently.

The difference between speakup and emacspeak is that emacspeak runs under
emacs.  As such, you need to also learn how to use emacs before you can use
emacspeak.  Speakup is a screen reader for linux in general and is somewhat
like ASAP in nature.

You've come along at the right time - a dectalk express driver is in
development at the moment.  I don't know what the state of it is at this
exact moment but I've heard some positive comments about it.

What will almost certainly be the most daunting thing about getting speakup
installed for you will be the kernel recompilation.  This is actually quite
straight-forward but it looks scary.  Actually before I go on, what version
of debian are you running, do you know?

The other tricky part is going to be downloading speakup and getting it
onto your system if you don't have speech.  If you don't yet have a working
PPP or other net connection, this could be tricky, though I guess you could
download them in windows and put them on a floppy and copy them back under
linux.

In brief, this is what you will have to do:

1.  Download speakup 0.08 and the new drivers set from
ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/speakup

2.  If you don't have a copy of the kernel source for kernel 2.2.6 or
higher, get one.  I believe 2.2.15 is about to be released if not
already.  This is available from kernel.org and numerous other
places.  Note that if you do already have one unpacked and ready to go,
skip to step 4.

3.  Unpack the linux kernel sources in /usr/src.  If you got a tar.gz file,
the command will be

	tar -zxf linux-2.2.14.tar.gz

presuming you and the file are both in /usr/src.  Of course, the filename
will depend on the kernel version you download.

4.  Copy the speakup tar.gz file to /usr/src and unpack it in the same way.

5.  Patch speakup into the kernel source.  Make sure you're in /usr/src
then type:

	patch -p0 <speakup-0.08/speakup-0.08-patch

This process changes the kernel source to suit speakup.  Note that one hunk
will fail.  This is a MIPS-related hunk and doesn't matter.  Note that if
more fail then something is wrong.

6.  Copy newdrv.tar.gz into /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/speakup and then
change to this directory and unpack it.  This installs the latest driver
sources, including the dec express driver.

7.  If you've compiled these kernel sources before, remove defkeymap.c from
the /usr/src/linux/drivers/char directory as this will be replaced during
compilation.  Note that I think this is the right name, someone please
correct this if I'm wrong.

8.  Change back up to /usr/src/linux.  Now here is the fun part.  If you've
compiled these sources before, you should be able to simply do a make
oldconfig and you'll merely be asked about speakup.  If you've never
compiled a kernel before, you might want to read up a bit on it and be sure
what hardware you have in your system, as you'll be asked about all of
it.  In the middle of all this, the process will ask about whether you want
speakup (of course you do), and what synth you want.

9.  After this, what people type tends to vary.  This is what I type and it
works for me.  I'd like to see a definitive list as to what all the options
for make actually do:

	make dep
	make clean (not necessary if you've compiled these sources before)
	make bzImage (note the capital I)

After this one, go make yourself a coffee and relax unless you're running a
real fast processor.  If you have modules in your kernel type:

	make modules
	make modules_install

I then type:

	make bzlilo

and it should be ready to reboot.  Hold your breath and type "restart".

I realise you probably want more detail than this but I thought it a good
idea to give you some idea of what you're in for.  Feel free to post more
questions.  Feel free also to download speak-freely and ask us in person
about all this if you don't understand any of it.

Geoff.