speakup 1.0 and slackware 8.0

[Thomas Ward]

Hi, my comments are below in the body of your last message.


----- Original Message -----
From: Reinhard Stebner <raydar at tamu.edu>
To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2001 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: speakup 1.0 and slackware 8.0


> > Slackware 8 does come with talking boot disks and kernel.
>
> The only thing I found on the speakup web site was slackware 7.1 with
> speaking boot disks.  Am I missing something?

There are plenty of places to tget the 88.0 iso. Try:
ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-8.0/isos/install.iso

>
> Thank you so much for your help it means a lot to me.  Here are some more
> newbee questions.  Could someone please explain how the man page works?
(by
> taking a man page and saying what all of the  [] {} and <> mean in
context?
>

The man page program is the help system for Linux. It works a site better
than Windows help, because you can jump strait to a specific topic.
The book Red Hat Unleashed 4.0 which is in etext at
http://www.blindprogramming.com has a good introduction to using man

> How dows one read one screen at a time instead of one line at a time?

If you are in an app such as pico a page up and page down will do this using
the page scrole keys located on the six key block next to the backspace key.
In man the spacebar takes you to the next page, and to review that page
press the plus key on the numpad.


 p> Is there a way to copy that page and save it and then braille out than
man
> page?

Well, I'd have the entire manual entry converted into a text file, save it,
and then if you wanted it in braille you'd have to configure a braille
printer under Linux.
If you want it in grade two then you'd have to setup something like megadots
for dos using the dosemu program.

>
> Is there any way to have a braille device working with speakup?

Not that I am aware of. However, there is an application called Brailletty
that gives braille display support for the consol. You could try it and see
how it works.

>
> Where can I find more docs on the proper feeding and care of my new os?

Well, there are many books and docs out there. For one see the documentation
cd found in the Red Hat 7.2 directory on the Speakup site.
Also I have a book called Slackware Unleashed which is aging, but still is a
great book for beginners.

>
> What about speakup (see last quesion).
>
> How hard is it to find documentation on programming un unix/linux?
> Is it quite differant from programming under dos?

There are a handful of books that deal with Linux specific programming. They
are all made by Sam's publishing. Teach Yourself Linux C++ programming in 21
days, Teach yourself Linux C programming in 24 hours, and teach yourself
gtk+ programming in 21 days.
I've been trying to get Sam's to make some etext copies for the blind, but
so far no budge. So I've been forced to scan them, and they are not to clean
scanned.
However, if you know c or C++ well enough programming in Linux is not that
much different than in dos.
There is also the perl language which is vary portible across platforms, and
> gtk+ is going to become vary useful to us as Gnopernicus nears completion.

> Final quesion, what are some do and don'ts when comming to:
>
> 1) installing and setting up the os

Well, I'd put Linux on it's own computer if possible. I find it just easier
than having to manage a multiboot. If not possible i use a drive drawer
system that allows me to remove my Linux drive, insert a Windows drive, and
switch between os's simply and without alot of fuss making a multiboot.

> 2) running the os

Linux is pretty tuff. You should always practice stuff as a normal user, and
not get in a habbit of doing things as root. Being root all the time leads
to problems if you are not careful.
I remember a friend of mine was going to remove a file from his /etc folder
and typed something like:
rm -rf *
Before he thought about what he was doing, and where he was, and he smoked
his entire system. Caution as root is vary wize.


> 3) upgrading

When I upgrade I typically just do a from scratch install, but it is not
necessary. You can upgrade any applications or system files you want, but I
tend to update the entire distribution when it comes out.

> 4) speakups limitations when comming to the operating this os?

Speakup is not a bad tts app, but it's biggest draw back is it will not give
you any speech access to the x-Windows server, x applications, or anything
with alot of graphical widgits.
However, Gnopernicus will be able to do that once it is finished, and
released with Gnome 2.0.
Speakup also has a problem with announcing which menu item it is on. In
programs such as links it will often announce the link aabove the one you
are on, or when going throu a menu driven tool such as linuxconf it will say
the item above the one you are on, and then the one you are on.

If anyone knows how to fix this behavior please let me know.



>
> Thank you once again for your willingness to help me out.
>

No problem.
>
>
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